Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings have the talent to turn this around. Is it Christian Darrisaw time?

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Matthew Coller and former Minnesota Vikings Jeremiah Sirles talk about whether we can expect the Vikings to put more focus on Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen at some point and how they have the roster to turn things around and compete... but will they do it? Jeremiah talks about watching film with Everson Griffen when they were teammates and why he believes Griffen has played so well this year and they discuss the locker room feeling when things go wrong under Mike Zimmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the Tick Pick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Tick Pick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. What's that sound you hear coming from the trenches? It's former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. It's time for the Tuesday Morning Left Guard show on Purple Insider. They're too strong, my dog!

You're too strong! Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. It is time once again for Tuesday Morning Left Guard. Matthew Collar and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles. Jeremiah, how are you? I am fantastic. Tough weekend here for the Husker game. Ripped my heart out pretty good, but a really solid games on Sunday of Husker football. Andrew Siciliano just serenaded me for seven hours on the Red Zone channel,

but it also is a very busy time at my house. I have my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and her four children here. So it's been busy, to say the least. Yeah, and not only that, but you took your first shot at watching NFL Game Pass and the film that was uploaded, and it is a tragedy. It is the worst thing I've ever seen. It actually shut down my computer like froze my computer and made it not work anymore and so i guess i'm gonna have to keep going with

that fool my computer to think it's in australia to watch the european version because it's insane how bad the film is it same thing my like i thought my internet was bad so i closed everything out and then i was like no because it'd be like half a second. And then it'd skip like nine plays and they're kicking a field goal. And I missed everything in between. And nothing was wrong with it last year. It was fine. Click the coaches.

You could click individual plays. You can't even click individual plays now. It's literally Russian roulette with what play you're going to see on the sideline or end zone thing. And it is just so bad and i was trying to scroll around to look like am i doing something wrong is there some sort of fix and the scrolling made it much worse and then it just freaked out and shut down so um i'm going to go back to using the vpn mode i guess to watch the film. It's so weird that the European version of the NFL game pass is the old one,

which worked fine and did not need to be changed at all. But you navigated your way through this football game that existed between the Vikings and the Detroit lions. Now the, the, the big picture takeaway Jeremiah overeremiah over the last couple days i think from fans has largely been look uh congratulations on the field goal um but this is not enough like this won't get you anywhere and i was looking at espn's fpi which is their football power index and uh they have the vikings at 14th and i think perpetually being 14th 16th 17th in that range of just about everything has just grown going pretty tired so as you watch that game did you feel like well there's this that and the other thing that they can fix to change who

they are or is this kind of who they are a team that will play up to Arizona play down to Detroit and just sort of bounce their way up and down through the season you know it's it's hard to watch games like this because you know there's so much better than what they put out on the field I think the one thing that I saw this week that was really glaring is Michael Pierce plays a big part in this defense and him not being out there and them asking Davin Tomlinson to move inside to more of that nose guard position at times he doesn't he he's not Michael Pierce and eating up those double teams like he can and he's much better on the outsides but I think that getting Anthony Barback helped but for me I think that this team is

we talked about it in the offseason we think that they're an eight or nine win team. And that's 14th and 15th and 16th because there's certain things we can overcome. But there's certain things that I think we're just limited to. And the question is, how do you fix it? And as I watch, there's a couple things. One thing I think that you need to target Adam Thielen a little bit more. You know, Justin Jefferson's superstar. No doubt about it.

Dude's a stud. He's had, I mean, like 160 yards receiving or something stupid like that. But you've got to get Adam Thielen more involved because you get two of those dudes going. Like we saw last year, it's really good. So you get those two guys going a little bit more because the protection was there. But the thing with the defense is we didn't really stop the run all day like we stopped it when there was penalties and so I think that all this to say yeah I think we're in eight or nine win football team because of just certain limitations but I

also can't really put my finger on like what those limitations are because it seems like it changes every single week. It feels also like there is an answer to this that may not get you to number one, but it gives you a chance to be better than 14. It also gives you a chance to be much worse than 14, which would be to open things up. And, you know, when you hear after the game, well, they mixed coverages on us. So we had to throw underneath the CJ and not throw to Adam Thielen and so forth. Like these are the things that we've been hearing kind of for years with Kirk Cousins of, well, you know, they just double teamed our top receiver. So we couldn't throw to him. And that's, you know, one of the reasons I think Stefan Diggs is a Buffalo Bill right now is because I don't think that Stefan digs accepted that. I'm not even sure that Kirk cousins is okay with the way that they run this offense. I mean, second down in 10 runs were just

everywhere in this game. And that was a thing that over the first couple of games, I thought, Oh, they're kind of getting away from, and maybe Clint, maybe Clint seeing some of the same things that, you know, all the top teams are seeing and he's being a little innovative here. And there was some more pre-snap motion, things like that. It's all kind of just gone right back to where it's been. And that just puts a cap on what you can be. It means you're going to play in a lot of 19 to 17 games. And, you know, I think that part of this probably is that Zimmer did not enjoy playing in a 30, whatever it was, game against Arizona.

That might be part of it. But when the answer does seem there of the one thing that could give you a chance and they absolutely refuse to go that direction and just keep pounding Alexander Madison, that that's where I think people watch the games in the stands and start booing and go like, are you really handing off for three yards again on second and 10? Will I watch Lamar Jackson put up 500 by himself? And will I watch Josh Allen throw rockets 50 yards in the air and somebody just makes a play, right? Like when you're looking at the rest of the league, it looks like a different universe from what you're seeing at us bank stadium i

completely agree with you and i don't know the answer but is it who who is who is holding the reins back right is it zimmer is it kirk is it clint is it kind of a combination of too many chefs in the kitchen trying to do too much and we can't do anything like really well but the idea of opening it up is you nailed it if you look across the nfl it's i mean it's it's backyard football a lot right now it's a lot of hey draw the play in the dirt if it's not open hey go deep and we're just going to launch one too and you just don't see the route combinations for the vikings in that respect i mean you see a lot of tight end at 10 yards out route at eight yards,

and then, oh, hey, we threw a go ball once down to Jefferson and he caught it. Let's never do that again. And it's just frustrating to watch. And I can imagine as a player, especially Kirk, especially these receivers, and I'll say this about our receivers, I think they're great individual like humans. You don't see them throwing stuff on the sideline and freaking out because I do think this team is a really close and really like wants to win and they'll do whatever it takes to win and they're bought in but at one point in time it's gonna boil over and you saw it with digs a few years ago I think you might see it with some of the older vets that are like come on man what are we what are we doing

like we know what we're capable of we've shown what we're capable of doing on offense let us just go do our thing and at this point I think you might see some more of that because they're right at the end of the game we kind of opened it up a little bit big play down the field another couple big plays but we're just so hesitant to push the ball down the field and I don't know if that's because we don't trust Kirk we don't trust the protection to hold up we don't trust the protection to hold up. We don't trust the receivers to go up and get it. But this, the, our, our screen game is so atrocious that there isn't one because it's like, okay, second and long third and long screen. And the defense knows it. I know it. Everyone who's watching the tape goes screen and it just gets nothing. And so I don't know what the answer

is, but I think the answer is, Hey, Kirk, you you want to be an NFL ball pro we're going to put the ball on your court and you go either make it happen or you don't but at this point it's on you because every great quarterback in this league I mean you heard it with uh the Chargers uh post game I watched their post game uh in the locker room thing and their head coach was like whenever you get in a shootout like this you've got to have a great trigger man like you've got to have a trigger man that can just let it loose and put the ball where it needs to be and he's absolutely right and Herbert was just excellent at that Kirk just doesn't they don't let him just go out there and be the trigger man that just dumps it and lets it rip and lets it fly I'd like to see him at least have the opportunity to do that and then I mean it's on, whether he makes it go or it doesn't work. Yeah. And that's part of it is feeling like this quarterback who has

been very up and down in his career. He's had his great games. He's had his poor games. And during his Vikings career, it's been a roller coaster, but feeling like he has the arm to make throws down the field and be successful with it. Last year is, I think it was 14 for 24 throwing over 20 yards to Justin Jefferson. And he has the accuracy. And if you give him time to throw, which in this game, he was given lots of time.

He was. And then that's a major part of it. And then when other teams figure out, Oh, all we have to do is just put a little roll, a little safety over their guy. And it just, the ball won't go there. I think that's part of who Kirk is that if teams double team, a wide receiver, he's not going to push it into a tight window. I also think that speaks to his arm strength. That is not Josh Allen. It's not Justin Herbert. It's not Patrick Mahomes.

You cannot fire BBs into tiny windows like you see Matt Stafford do. But at the same time, you can throw balls up, you know, and let a 50-50 ball make a play. And that's what we saw from Case Keenum a lot in 2017. And that was sort of, it evens the talent gap. For sure, Cousins is more talented than Keenum, but Keenum would just throw those balls up. And it drove Zimmer crazy and Keenum but Keenum would just throw those balls up and I'm and it drove Zimmer crazy and Keenum didn't care I think that's another part of it is that Kirk is very much like the I'm gonna do what the coaches tell me to do I'm gonna operate those plays and Keenum was kind of like I don't know man I get out there I'm gonna throw it out just make a play

you can yell at me after the game in the press conference but you know and so I think that that's that that is sort of a combination where if you haven't empowered him to do that he's not going to do it and then we just push the repeat button each week and you hope you make the field goal at the end yeah I think that when you look at it from the objective point of view is is Kirk gonna is Kirk willing to go to war with Zimmer over it and I think the answer is no I think that's personality, and I'm not saying it's bad at all. I mean, he's an amazing human being is compliance, I guess, is one way to say it of like, hey, we're going to respect the hierarchy of all this.

You're the head coach. You tell us what to do. It's our job. We're players. We're not coaches. We go out, we run what you're going to ask us to run. And I think that that's kind of where he falls into that category and so that's why you don't see the them clashing on the sideline ever too because I mean if you would think about it if you named any of those quarterbacks you just came off and we're

down they're not pushing the ball you're going to see them maybe getting a little more upset with their head guy or even their OC or maybe they're having a heated conversation with the receiver on the sideline and you just don't see that from when you watch the games or when you hear Kirk talk after the games, when you hear anyone talk after the games. And it's almost like they just don't want to rock the boat. And you can understand that when you can tell everyone's buttholes are probably a little tight over in Eden Prairie

or where they're in Eagan now, right? Over in Eagan, where it's just like you can tell everyone's kind of tension because there's a lot riding on this season of who's keeping jobs, who's getting cut, who's doing. And so I think everyone's just trying to play so tight and so afraid to not make mistakes that we're just not opening it up. And you're really starting to see it show on Sundays. And you've been through this 2016 had, it had a very similar feeling in terms of now this year, we are not, quote, in the locker room because COVID and something.

Even though there was a postgame scrum for Greg Joseph where everyone gathered around him. But I guess that's not a COVID thing. But being in the locker, I don't know. Nobody knows what a COVID thing is anymore. I'm not trying to explain the rules to me um everyone's vaccinated and wearing masks but not out go everyone out locker room i i don't know yeah i didn't make that rule but uh anyway so you know it inside the locker room in 2016 it was very tense uh everything like say a tweet from a cornerback or something would would kind of get like blown up in some way or another bad situations were made worse. Everyone was tense. And I think that the head coach of this

football team does not make that better. Um, and that he's never made it better. He didn't make it better in 2018. He did not make it better last year. Like that's not a thing that he, that he's really, it's like, we talk about how this team has to play from ahead they also have to play from ahead in the standings because once they're not it seems like the tension will get to Zimmer and ultimately you and he's I think he's trying to get better from this but ultimately I think that it makes people play more tense and play worse and I really think that 2016 team dealt with that yeah especially when you've got young players in key positions. I mean, especially with the day and age of what college coaching is now, where you're basically having to recruit your kids through four years at university

so they don't transfer, that you don't really have the old school come down on you and just let you have it type of coach anymore. Because if you have that in college, they just hit the eject button and go somewhere else. Now you get into the NFL and there is some of the old school coaches still around like Zimmer, like Ron Rivera, like some of these dudes that have been doing it for a long time that have no problem. Just, Hey, you're not doing your job.

I'm going to let you know about it. And you can almost see some of the young guys that they just clam up so bad and they're so afraid of disappointing the head coach or making the air to make the head coach upset that you can play tight and when you play tight you play slow and when you play slow you get burned in this league because there's only one way to play in the nfl and it's 100 miles an hour at every point or else you're just going to get torched and some coaches are really good about understanding the balance of that. Other coaches are kind of like, no, you can adapt to the way I coach.

I had that coach in college. Bo Pelini was that way. And we talked about it for a while after I graduated. I got chalked with him and like, hey, when things would go wrong on the sideline, like your attitude wouldn't help it. Like your, your freak outs and stuff would not help me feel like, Oh,

I'm okay to go back out there and make things happen again. Like your, your, your freak outs and your, your anger and as much passion as you have for the game really made me like, Oh, stay away from me.

Don't talk to me like, and made some more anxiety. And so I think that can happen a little bit in the NFL too, especially with younger guys. harrison smith don't care if mike zimmer is going to come over and yell at him like daniel hunter doesn't care cam dancer might care you know some of these young dj want them might care like there's certain guys that you need in key positions that might just need something a little on the other edge that are still just adapting to it. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but that's definitely something that happens as in the NFL. And it's going to start happening more and more with college becoming softer. Yeah, I know. I agree with that. And I also think that, you know, the fact that everyone

can read everything you say, this is, this is something that Zimmer has never really understood that what you say in that room with 12 of us staring at you, that's going over Twitter, and that's going on Facebook and Instagram, Brashad Breeland's vulgar tweet, I think, I think that there are evidence of that. Like, I mean, I don't believe that Mike Tomlin would have handled it that way. I, you know, I think Bill Belichick probably would have said we're dealing with it internally or something like that. We're on to whoever they play next. And, and blunt bluntness is to be

appreciated and i have learned a lot about football because of mike zimmer's blunt list but there's a bluntness but there's also a um another side of that and i've heard just from people that the wilfs are considering the other side of that as they go through this you know if you go to two and four it's not just how's your defense look. Defense looks okay. It looks fine. I expected it to look, but that's not all the considerations that will be made if they don't win against Carolina. So let's talk just real quick of line. Christian Darstaw, football player, football league.

Now, from what you could spot on the film, what did you think of his play? Yeah, so I actually thought he came in and played rather well um I think that in his limited snaps he came in and the one thing that immediately was apparent to me is he can anchor in the pass protection game uh the last few weeks we've seen Rashad Hill in a couple times in the first play of the second half this week you see Rashad Hill get ran clean over I mean he gets melted gets melted by Flowers, who's a good defensive end. That's a good player. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that he's some slap out there.

But Derrissaw, you can see he hits, he jumps, he anchors, and stops. And that's a big quality to have. And I think that's one of the reasons he's a first-round pick is because you saw him do that all through college. I remember watching him in college. He can hit with his hands, and he can sit with that big old butt of his and he just sits there and absorbs it and it's great. In the run game, I really thought he showed some good strength. He showed some opening, some holes. He was able to have some one-on-one blocks and get guys moved off the line of scrimmage. He had good

pad level. There was another one that really stood out to me was he took his set, guy came inside and he just absolutely slammed the door with good quick feet, good hands, and was able to let Kirk roll out of the pocket and get out and make it a good reception. And so just seeing flashes, right? You saw some flashes, but you all saw sometimes he got beat. But again, I have to remind myself, this is his first really NFL experience. And you're kind of thrown in there in a big game. I mean, a big game against a good player, but I was really pleasantly surprised with what I saw from him. And it also was kind of like,

that's what I expected from you when they drafted you, like when they drafted you in the first round or this is, this is who you should be. This is what you need to be. This is what this team needed. This is what this team looked at in the off season and glaring glaring issue big time glaring issue this is what we need to fix and i think that with his development i mean again i'm not anointing him king what we do at jefferson last year the the the hot cold meter he's in the light blue dude dude's cold as ice but i do think the arrow is pointed up for him and i think he is the long-term solution not Rashad Hill love the guy to death we've talked about it he's not a 16-17 game starter for this team I think Derrissaw could be the long-term solution there at left guard at left tackle excuse me folks football

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to, hey, go play 70 plays this week is not, it's just not something that's smart to do. I think that if you want to get him in game shape, you do exactly like you did this week, but more. You just kind of ramp him up. Maybe he gets a full quarter now, right? Maybe he starts the second half, so he gets used to starting after coming out of the locker room. You do things that mentally help him go through his checklist of what it's like to play in an

NFL game too, not just physically. And I think you do that for another week or two, and then you gauge his play. Obviously it's a lot gauged on how he's playing, how he's performing because as the more he plays the book on how to beat him on tape comes out more and he has to learn how to adjust each and every week too there's so much that goes into a guy starting versus just nope start him he's the guy there's so much more that goes into that that usually you get to see through preseason and camp in the first couple weeks of the season that we just don't have with him we're just simply saying we we have an issue there at left tackle and we need to find a way to plug the hole in the dam and right now you're our only

option yeah so a stat for you um almost four yeah almost 40 percent of kirk's total pressure comes from one position that position is left tackle uh and surprisingly and maybe this is from getting the ball out quicker this year um kirkousins has not caused anywhere near amount of his own pressure that he did last year from holding the ball too long or things like that. So he has been getting the ball out, which has also taken his average yards per attempt down to 22nd in the league or the Vikings as a team or 22nd in yards per pass attempt. So there's always this sort of give and take. But when 40% of your total pressure is coming from one position, that's where you have to do something else if you have that option. So I think after the bye, especially when they go against Micah Parsons coming out of the bye, that should be two first-round picks battling against each other at that position.

I also wanted to ask you, and I know we've talked about him several times on this show about your experience practicing against Everson Griffin, but Everson Griffin is looking fantastic and is one of the tops in the league in terms of his pass rush win rates. He is second on the team in pressures by a country mile. Nobody else is even close. It's Hunter 27, Griffin with 16, 11 in the last two weeks weeks and then the next down is seven so that that they have relied greatly on them why do you think that uh everson griffin has been able to maintain this level of explosiveness and success uh because he looks like the old everson yeah i think a lot of it i think everson being the human being that he is and some, we all know

Everson's got demons, right? We all got demons, but I think him being back in a comfortable situation in a place that he knows in a scheme that he knows surrounded by guys that love him and surrounded by guys that he trusts has allowed him to just go out and play football the way he knows how to play football. And that's at a million miles an hour with reckless abandon and you see it i mean and he's lived inside the lions tackles heads rent free for the last like 10 years anyways i mean decker and wagner i've watched him ruin both those dudes and now he had the rookie penesul who had no shot most of the time and so seeing the way that he works guys through the game and i love if you just want to spend an entire game just watching everson watch the way he sets guys up for pass rush moves it's pretty

impressive i mean it's speed speed speed spin hey bull rush bullish bull rush hop outside hop outside to the counter inside he has a plan every single week i know i would watch tape with him and he would study tape of how he wanted to attack these guys. He's like, okay, I'm going to set them up this way. And then,

Hey, maker time, I'm going to come with this. And he understands that there's critical situations when you pass rush. And so when he's going to pass rush, he knows, okay, I've set him up and he's ready for this counter.

He's ready for this. And so I'm going to hit him with it. And he's in, we're just going to, it's teed up for him. And he's done that each and every week. mean i've seen it and then the other piece too that i think is a really reason why he's having a lot of success is i love what zimmer's doing and andre patterson with putting the neil and him on the same side as a everson down at the

three technique position and deniel outside and they're running games and they're running stunts or they're just rushing straight up and everson on a guard is always going to be a mismatch and I think that once you put those two on the same side that guard and tackle start to slow set a little bit because they're worried about are the twisting are they not and that's allowed him to get some good pressure rate coming from the inside too but I mean is it hard it? I think we could argue to say that he was our best free agent signing throughout the entire offseason. Yeah, I mean, he's been I mean, he's been remarkable and he's exactly what this defense needed. And not costly either, because he was out there toward the end of training camp. And that's when a lot of the best signings happen is when somebody sort of slips through the cracks and then all of a sudden you get a really good deal.

But, you know, that's as you're talking, I was just thinking about how a lot of things have actually gone right in terms of the roster for the Vikings. So you think about the offensive line has been completely healthy for the whole line that they had through preseason. Everson has come in and played well. That was a question mark. Daniil Hunter is one of the three or four best pass rushers in the NFL. Now, remember I told you about the true pass set statistic?

On the other side of that, he wins 40% of those, which is an insanely high mark. That's crazy. Yeah, that's right at the top of the league, Daniil Hunter. So his fused-on neck works totally fine. Xavier Woods has been fine. Patrick Peterson has been fine outside of the Arizona game where there was some confusion.

But other than that, he made a good play, missed the pretty questionable tackle also in this game, but he's been fine. He's been fine. It hasn't been any type of disaster. The receivers have stayed healthy. Even the running game has been fine.

Not even with Delvin Cook out and so to be sitting at two and three and looking at the roster and saying you've been mostly healthy outside of dings and cuts and Nick Vigil was okay with Anthony Barr out that that's where I think like the road forward feels harder because if Everson Griffin slows down a little as the season goes along or, you know, whatever number of other injuries that could pop up or COVID list or whatever. I mean, it feels like they want to say we've gotten a lot of bad bounces, but I don't think that things on the roster have actually gone too wrong for them. And that's hard to maintain throughout a whole season. It is. And I'll give the Vikings and Steph steph i mean this was the first team they played that had a losing record this year right i mean they've had a

tough start to the year and i think that if they can get to the buy and they can be what would they be up at three and three if they win this week that's correct so you get to you get to three and three and then you get to the buy after, because they have a bye after that, right? I'm trying to think of the schedule ahead of me here. So get to three and three, get to the bye, and really hit the reset. And you come out of the bye healthier than you started the season, especially if you have, okay, we've ramped up our left tackle at Derrissaw now. Get him in there.

Hey, we've got our vets some rest,erson and everson and bar and those guys have kind of got another rest new season right new season and you started zero and zero and you just go from there the schedule doesn't get any easier for them by any means but at the same time i think that they'll have a little bit more confidence than they even did when the season started and when you have a little bit more confidence than when you're 0-0 and you have more confidence at 3-3, I think good things can happen. So I'm not saying we're going to go out there and be 15 wins or whatever, 14 wins or whatever it's going to be.

But I do think this team has the potential to turn the corner, like we said at the beginning, if everything goes right. But, I mean, you can go all the way back to Zimmer's comments in the preseason. If we get some guys hurt, the depth's not really there. And that's your point, I believe. And that point is terrifying because we are already teetering on hanging on or winning. And as soon as one or two pieces might fall out of that, it's going to be really hard for this team to win football games.

Right. So Michael Pierce goes down and all of a sudden the Browns and the Detroit Lions just steamroll you on the ground and I don't think you know I don't think Dallas is going to give you any breaks if Michael Pierce isn't back by then right I mean they're they're going to run you over for the entire game and then they have one of the best quarterbacks in the league so like that that's where and and san francisco is not going to give you any breaks on the ground and teams like that so uh but i i guess what i'm thinking is just that your point is correct that if you get to three and three that you have the talent and at least if you get out of this game largely healthy you'll have the health to have it all in front of you to prove it.

And that's why I look at it. Like, if you think that this is the direction you want to go, this is the coach, this is the quarterback, this is the front office, then you will have that opportunity. If you win that game against Carolina, if you don't, you can't sell me on any of this working and your chances go into the tank in terms of making the playoffs. Yeah, I think this is a, this is obviously the biggest week of the season for the Vikings so far. They have to win this football game. And I think the Panthers are a much more competent team than they have been in the past. I mean, and like you said, they've got good, they're playing good defense right now. Sam Darnold still yet to be, be i don't know he's got like five rushing touchdowns but i mean they're all from like two yards away and so i don't know i think this is a

great test for this team i think they are confident coming off this win but as long as they're able to go out and get a lead against this team and not have to drop back against brian burns for 40 times like we talked about i feel pretty good about them being able to win this football game this week okay uh the so the football power index football power power index football uh is uh 14 versus 15 so uh there you go they have these teams is pretty even which kind of tells you about where you stand in the universe that you're even with a very mediocre Carolina team that played horrendously bad football against the Philadelphia Eagles. So neither team should be happy with what they just did.

So you can't do the whole, like, well, they're coming off a win. They'll be cocky or jaunty. They're coming off a loss. They'll be fired up. Like, you know, both teams really need to win this game so um i think it will be uh i think it's an apt matchup really like if you can't beat this team then well you know i don't know that you deserve to to even get the opportunity to have that run and if you plow the carolina panthers and beat them by 20 then new season that's the way i look

at it uh let's sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think when you, when you look at this team on paper, Carolina versus the Vikings, it shouldn't be close, right? When you look at the talent gap from, I think that Carolina has got some good players. Don't get me wrong. When you look at the talent that the Vikings have, especially on offense versus what the Panthers have on offense. I mean, this should be one of those games that like, you call it like what a get right game, right? Like, Hey, get everything back on schedule.

We got all our pieces besides maybe Michael Pierce and let's just get it, get right and get into the buy versus I think the Panthers will be on the other side of like, we don't really have anything to lose. Let's go knock off the Vikings. Right. And so I think it's going to be a really good game. This game is going to come down to who takes care of the football like when you when you look at evenly matched teams you think okay who's gonna turn the football over first and who's gonna make a mistake and I I personally think that's gonna be Sam Darnold but at the same time Kirk's been known to have one of those games where

it's just like where where hello earth to Kirk earth to Kirk where are you And there's the third quarter and he's like, Oh, I'm here. And so like, if he has one of those in the first half, we could be in trouble this weekend. The Vikings have both the lowest turnovers on offense and the, I think fourth lowest turnover percentage on defense. That's bound to break one way or the other. And I guess we'll find out. I tend to think zimmer defense is against unproven quarterbacks uh usually pretty good but that you know it's not

it's not 2017 anymore so uh let's do uh love to see it hate to see it i'm gonna say start with love to see it lamar jackson noted wide receiver uh throwing for 450 or something the highest completion percentage ever in a game where a guy threw for over 400 yards um i don't know man his throwing motion ain't perfect but he can throw the football like a franchise quarterback good for you lamar jackson and good for us what a football game oh it was so fun to watch great game so fun to watch my love to see it is watching the buffalo bills just skull drag the kansas city chiefs up and down the field for four and a half hours with the lightning delay because i watched every glorious minute and there's just something about watching patrick mahomes have to eat a little bit of humble pie like and even though

collinsworth just couldn't stop just stroking it just loving it right it's like all Chiefs are down three scores with eight minutes left if anyone could do this it's Patrick Mahomes it's like give give us give the guys some credit he refused to give the Bills credit but I think the Bills are the best team in the NFL right now they're playing unbelievable football and I just loved watching them drag Kansas City up and down the field you are definitely a Bills fan when you're saying they don't give us enough credit on the TV broadcast that is uh that is true it's long been a thing it is long um I would say just a quick take I think Sean McDermott if you were doing an all coach draft might go number one for sure NFL I think he is phenomenal and his game plans against the Kansas City Chiefs

have routinely just been uh next level uh I am going to say kickers except for Greg Joseph kickers not named Greg Joseph Rodrigo Blankenship what happened there a 47 yarder um also you know and along the same lines hate to see it coaches who play for field goals get exactly what they've got coming to them that's the way i look at it too but is it just me or were kickers better like in the 90 like late 90s 2000s this was the most missed kicks in a weekend since 1987 jeremiah i i swear teams just like get a kicker and if he struggles for a minute he's just gone and they don't let guys like develop and become who they are and so they're playing this like whack-a-mole game and uh i think it hurts everyone so kickers hate to see it just a bad weekend how about how about blank ship like

sitting down behind the water cooler? Did you see that when he was playing? They panned to him, and he just looked like a two-year-old, like pouting behind the wall. I was like, what? Are you stretching? What are you doing? Get up.

Get up. All right, so my hate to see it is, and it's kind of a love to see it too, is Bama going down. Like, I wanted to see the undefeated Bama versus the undefeated Georgia in the SEC championship because I do think those are still two of the best teams in the country Alabama always finds a way to step on their own Johnson every now and then throughout the year but I wanted to see that matchup I really did and so now I've been robbed of that but I also love to see bama go down so

it's kind of a love hate for me in that regard i mean that you could do a whole love to see a college football this last weekend i mean it was it was texas it was peaking texas college football um one last one for me hate to see it everything related to john gruden just a shame i've uh from the outside and this is always proof like you just don't know people but um i've just always enjoyed john gruden like football guy and his one-on-ones with the quarterbacks and everything i learned a lot from those um if you watch not the sports center two-minute version but like the 30-minute version of them um they're really insightful and very interesting and i've learned a lot but so i've sort of always enjoyed him i even enjoyed him as a broadcaster it was kind of crazy sometimes but like i you know i enjoyed how football he annexes and knows

he wanted to be in that and to see what i guess who he is sort of revealed um it's just really it's it sucks man it's just like very very disappointing so you hate to see that um and obviously the right move to just move on from him yeah and and that sucks i mean you never want to see someone that you mean that really kids probably looked up to you in college people like to have that happen is just not good for the sport it's not good for the shield but you know who doesn't hate it? Urban Meyer. Urban Meyer is not super upset that the spotlight has then gone from Florida out to Vegas.

Because if anyone needs to get checked like that, Urban Meyer is next on the list. Give it a week. Give it two weeks. Urban Meyer will find his way back into the cycle. He's actually upset that the spotlight's off him, so he's got to find ways to get back in it. He's going through his emails. What ones of my emails can get me out of this?

That guy is George Costanza dragging around the championship trophy. Oh, my gosh. You'll see that Seinfeld episode. He wants out of this. Out, out, out, out. Great stuff, Jeremiah, as always. And best of luck to your Cornhuskers this week. And we will do it again on Tuesday morning, Left Guard.

Absolutely.