Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings survived the Panthers and kept the season alive

Episode Date: October 1, 2023

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press talk about the Vikings' win over the Carolina Panthers and how they were able to eek it out after Kirk Cousins struggled. The defense improved with a great game from Harrison Smith and Marcus Davenport. The run game was better. But they still only won by eight? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody, welcome to the Minnesota Vikings survived playing against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte today, 21 to 13. Matthew Collar here with you. And on location, I did not travel for this one, but Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press most certainly did. And, you know, as I was just loading this thing up, I'm trying to think, where's a good place to start? Do we want to start with, hey, they won. The season is back together. They're playing. They're not out of it yet. Still today, they'd be drafting, I think, third overall.

But that's not the point. They're one in three. I don't know what the records are for one in three teams that make the playoffs, but still alive. Do we want to start with Marcus Da davenport harrison smith looking good bryce young looking very bad versus anthony richardson or cj stroud and how they've looked uh the running game getting going jefferson is still ungodly kirk cousins first bad game of the year and they actually find a way to get a win so i'm gonna going to leave it to you, Dane. Where would you like to begin this postgame show? I think we have to begin with Kirk because Kirk was despondent postgame. You would never know that they just won 21-13. And truthfully, I understand his reaction. He probably deep down

knows they are one or two plays away from losing this game. Like if that goal ball to Jefferson, that Jefferson goes superhuman, climbs the ladder, catches a 30-yard touchdown, tells the defender he's too small right after, and then walks off the field without even hitting the gritty. If Jefferson doesn't do that, they might lose on a last second field goal because Kirk Cousins threw an egregious interception on the opening drive of the game that he postgame could not get out of his head. You could tell. You could just watch him at the podium, and you can almost see his mind working, running through that play over and over and over again. So I think we have to start with him when we talk about this game,

because I'll tell you what, when, when I, before I left yesterday, I went and picked up an ethernet cord from your house. And I said, maybe this is the game where Kirk just throws an egregious pick six to let the Carolina Panthers hang around. It's exactly what he did. And the Vikings are fortunate to come away with this win. And I think Kirk Cousins knows that deep down. So overall, yeah, it counts. They're

one in three instead of O and four. I think only one team's made the playoffs starting O and four. So the Vikings don't have to worry about trying to fight out of that. Not so good list, but a ton of room for improvement from today's game. And I think it starts with your quarterback. So I think, Dane, this is the duality of Kirk, that Kirk over his career as a Minnesota Viking, it's always been the Kirk coaster where he has a game one week where you think you cannot play better football than that.

Wow, that is Wow. That is astonishing. And then the very next week you go, what happened? And I go back to his first year here where he's playing against the green Bay Packers in the game that they tied in 2018. And he threw for like 425 yards, brought them back multiple times in that game. He was just wonderful. And I was like, wow, I mean, this guy is better than I thought he was just wonderful and I was like wow I mean this guy is better than I thought he was and then the next week they get beat by the Bills who hadn't won a game and that's kind of how it felt like this and Craig in the comments brings up Falcons 2020 where Kirk had started the 2020 season playing extremely well he had a good game against I think

it was Tennessee Seattle and then he plays the Falcons and throws three picks in the first half. So we were kind of wondering, would there be a bad Kirk game that shows up? And it wasn't just the pick six. I mean, the pick six was egregious. That was one where you could see it coming the entire way, where you're saying, throw it, throw it. Why aren't you? Oh, my.

Like, the whole process you could see playing out but it wasn't just that i mean really it was the entire game where the response to the pick six was a three and out and then there's a throw across the middle to tj hawkinson that was probably a pass interference but the throw is late the ball's not coming out you know there's a couple of pressures a couple of sacks mixed in there where you're saying, Hey, Kirk, what's going to go on here? And I don't know how to ever predict this. All I know is that throughout a season, you get about four or five of these games where it's not a good game from your quarterback. They get a win in one of them, but they had three good games by their quarterback that they lost to

start the season and this is the trouble so when you look at this upcoming schedule you say like okay Kansas City's gonna be hard but Chicago all right San Francisco's hard but heck I mean you know Denver you can beat and Vegas you can beat and so forth but in any game we go into I we're not sure when that's going to show up again and if dj want him doesn't pick up the football and run it for a touchdown we're talking about that game being 17 to 6 at that point and maybe the way that kirk was playing not getting the magical comeback that they got so many times before yeah and it's good you bring up that dj want to play because as the panthers are driving and like make no mistake that the Panthers did not look good today either.

The Vikings defense actually didn't allow a touchdown. The only touchdown on the board was the one that Kirk threw to the safety. But as they're driving on that possession before DJ Wanham has the ball bounce right into his lap and he runs 51 yards for a touchdown. You're thinking, OK okay if the panthers get in the end zone here it's insurmountable but you are also thinking like okay if the panthers score even a field goal here like 11 points feels pretty pretty good it's going to be tough for them to come back against i guess it would be at that point uh not 11 points, but it would have, it felt like that was a turning point in the game, not only because it helped the Vikings jump ahead 14, 13, but because it didn't really feel like the

Vikings offense was going to be able to get anything rolling before that in the way that, you know, we've seen them roll week one, week two, week three at at times it was not that today there was none of that which is why I do think as much as I think Kirk deserves some credit for after the DJ Wanham touchdown the Vikings force a you know a punt and the Vikings get offense gets the ball back and and then the Vikings go ahead 21-13 on that catch from from Jefferson Kirk technically led that drive so I guess we have to give him some credit but that was the running game that was Cam Akers getting going that was Cam Akers catching a ball in the flat I think the best thing Kirk did on that drive and we were talking to Kevin O'Connell after the game if you recall the play Cam Akers catches a ball

gets nine looked like he got 10 but it's a second and one play and the clock's ticking down so the vikings are lining up and they're willing to let the clock just bleed out of the third quarter go to the fourth flip the field kirk gives a nice hard count there and he gets credit for that because he caught you know the panthers sleeping they jump slotman snaps the ball and then kirk makes the wise decision of oh i'm just going to throw to the best receiver on the planet and one-on-one coverage so you can give him some credit but even on the the game changing touchdown drive for the offense it was a lot of other guys stepping up making plays and i think that's why kirk deep down

came to the podium and looked like the Vikings had just lost because I think he knows without a couple plays coming here and there from his teammates they would have lost and he would have been the reason for that yeah so there's so many things from this game that I just like am interested in and part of it is not just that Kirk struggled but also when you look at the distribution of targets, it's been the Jefferson offense most of the season. And the idea was that it was supposed to be, all right, Jefferson's going to be great. But I remember going into the season saying, if Jefferson actually has fewer yards, that might be good because that means that

you're getting the ball to Addison. You're getting the ball to KJ Osborne. You're getting the ball to TJ Hawkinson. And hey, that passing game out of the backfield, totally non-existent so far. Hawkinson has not been a difference maker today. I mean, Jordan Addison, the best play he made was getting kind of punched in the face as he was turning around for a football and it turns into a 45 yard penalty. And I'm trying to figure out how also, yeah, Addison missed a block where Justin Jefferson got lit up and maybe that's just not the best play to run with Jordan Addison

of all the things he can do in the NFL. I do not think blocking is one of them. And so a play might feel good on paper, but in a practice, maybe not so much. And I don't think Addison is ever going to be a good blocker. So maybe just take that out of the playbook, put in Johnny Munt. If you're going to run that, put him out there and have him block and not Jordan Addison, but Addison and Osborne have been factors here or there a big touchdown a couple of weeks ago for Addison, a big touchdown last week for K.J. Osborne. But for the most part, this hasn't had the distribution

that I think we expected. And I don't know how much to put on the fact that it felt like they weren't on the field very often again because Carolina was throwing three yards at a time with Bryce Young on a lot of those drives. They had an 11-play 30-yard drive that took up six minutes. I don't know how that happens, but that's been a very consistent theme that opponents know they can stay on the field with these long drives.

Still, I have to wonder about why they haven't been able to work the ball to a lot of different places. Yeah, I didn't even realize that until you brought it all up. But three targets for Hawkinson, two targets for Osborne, one target for Addison. Kevin O'Connell did talk postgame about how we just didn't get enough opportunities with the football in our hands. And I think he felt good about the running game. But I think when he's saying we didn't get enough opportunities with football in our hands, he's talking about that past game that he touted over and over and over again amid the 0-3 start. So, yeah, I guess if you flip the result and the Vikings lose this game, those numbers look awful. Like the target, not only just the lack of production, but the lack of spreading the ball around to your playmakers.

It's definitely something to take note of as we kind of progress to the rest of the season, because you're not going to play the Carolina Panthers every week. You're not going to play a team whose quarterback, the lights look a bit too bright right now for Bryce Young. As a matter of fact, next week, you're going to play Patrick Mahone. So if you want to score with the teams that are at the top of the top of the league, then you're going to need more distribution than just nine targets to Jefferson and only three being the high to anyone else on the team. Also to note, like six catches, 85 yards, two touchdowns for jefferson to me it felt like he still did put the team on his back because the offense couldn't do anything but take away that 30 yard bomb up the left sideline and it's a pretty pedestrian game for him too so credit to justin for making the

most of his opportunities but i think other guys on this offense need more opportunities i just don't know how jordan addison can go a whole game with one target. I get the game script thing, but it seems like last week we were talking, how does Jefferson go 15 minutes an entire quarter without a target heading his way? I think you've got to find ways to get the ball into Jordan Addison's hands, other guys' hands, TJ Hawkinson, the you paid into t.j hawkinson's hands more guys need to eat on this offense at least as far as the passing game goes i did think the running game was pretty good today with madison and acres looking like a pretty good one two punts for the vikings

i definitely want to get into the defensive side because there's a real talk about like duality of feelings there. Like if the other team has the ball for 40 minutes of the game, were you great on defense or I, but I think you were, but I'm not really sure, but just what you said about the running game. I, I don't know, like if the Panthers are just bad or whatever, but I think cam acres has some jolt to him. Like he, we've've we met cam acres and my first impression was whoa like this guy is yoked i mean like all running backs are pretty pretty beefed but like he's he's impressive physically and so you're like well this guy has been good with the rams so he should be good and he knows the playbook and everything else comes out and just he ran the ball five times. I was surprised because it felt like he was getting big runs throughout the day. Madison had a hugely successful day, probably, you know, competition based for the first two weeks and offensive line, you know, injuries and things like that. They were mostly healthy today. So they run extremely well and that's kind of the

running that they were hoping for okay that's great um but the right guard situation uh throughout the game especially when kirk cousins arm was hit and popped up and threw an interception there and ed ingram was clearly beat i think ingram has run blocked extremely well over the last two weeks which may be what's keeping him on the field i really don't know because his negative plays at right guard and pass protection have caused now countless turnovers countless sacks on third downs ruined drives and dalton reisner is sitting on the sidelines still and when we talked to reisner this week it seemed like he was going to play it seemed like kevin o'connell indicated he was going to play it seemed like Kevin O'Connell indicated he was going to play it seemed kind of obvious after the way he had played in past protection

against the Chargers what what do we what do we think happened there with Ed Ingram still playing the entire game at right guard I don't know and I don't know how you could go out of the locker room after halftime and not just say let's try Dalton Reisner at right guard because to your point about Ed Ingram who cares if he's run blocking well it looked like everyone on the line was run blocking well today the Vikings had 135 yards rushing Alexander Madison averaged 5.6 yards of carry cam makers like you mentioned eight yards of carry the run blocking was good and Ed Inram's run blocking to this point in the season has been pretty good but we're not talking about run blocking when we're

talking about ed ingram's deficiencies we're talking about pass blocking and on kirk's second interception of the game as critical as he was of himself for that first interception that went for a 99 yard pick six kirk basically just gave himself a pass for that one and said, my arm's getting hit while I throw. What do you want me to do there? And he has a point. Ed Ingram gets beat clean at right guard. The guy gets home, hits Kirk's arm,

ball goes 100 yards into the air and lands right in the Panthers' linebacker's arms. I don't know what the plan is here. And I think in the same way that the Vikings need to be like critical of themselves amid victory for not diversifying the targets on offense, they need to be critical of themselves in victory when it comes to lineup decisions. I think moving moving forward i don't think you can just say oh we won we're one in three let's roll into next week with the same lineup

we had because why fix a thing that that isn't broken because we got the result we wanted like it's still broken and i think if the vikings go on to lose this game, you're looking at the right guard play and you're saying, well, where is Dalton Reisner? I think they almost get a pass because we're talking about J.J. with the great catch. Harrison Smith, we'll talk about him, I'm sure. Vintage performance from him. Marcus Davenport's back. There's so many things to talk about in the positive that we won't talk about. Oh, Ed Ingram still stinks at right guard. Like none of those things come up in victory,

but I think the Vikings need to be hypercritical of themselves. And like, I just don't know why you bring Dalton Reisner in if you're just going to consistently watch the same thing happen over and over and over again at right guard. I think he will play next week, but I thought he was going to play this week, so who knows? Folks, this fall season is an unbelievable time for sports, and I'm always a fan of trying to catch other games when I go on the road to cover football, like baseball, hockey, basketball, just about anything, and that's why I use GameTime, the fast and easy way to buy tickets of any type of event,

even music, comedy, whatever you're looking for. GameTime has last-minute flash deals on tickets, images of seats, and a low-price guarantee. You don't have to plan your tickets months out in advance. With GameTime, there are deals on tickets right up to game day the game time guarantee means that you always get the best deal if you find a better price in the same section or row for less game time will credit you 110 buy tickets in seconds and have them arrive right there on your phone it's great great. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code INSIDER for $20 off your first purchase.

Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem code INSIDER for $20 off. Download GameTime today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Yeah, and unlike last week, the TV cameras didn't even find him after the big sack last week there was a sack against the right guard and the cameras were like there's the guy who should be playing uh but not this time it is it is odd i mean i know it's hard to come in and learn the playbook and everything else and i guess maybe they felt like he wasn't prepared still, or they watched the tape back and thought that Ingram was so good at run blocking that they didn't want to

make a change there. Also, by the way, this week, it sounded like Garrett Bradbury was going to be back and they talked confidently. And then he's inactive for this game, which it just continues to make you wonder when will he play? And by the way, next week, there's a fella named Chris Jones that I know Taylor Swift is dating one of the best players on the chiefs. That's not named Mahomes, but not the best. Cause that's Chris Jones. He is an absolutely monster dominant defensive tackle. And are you going to still go in with one of the worst right guards in football and a backup center? That could be a pretty tough task, maybe tougher than it was today.

There's one more offensive thing I wanted to bring up. So the Vikings have a chance to put the game on ice and it's third and two. And they've been running the heck out of the football all day long. And Kirk Cousins takes the snap and whips it down the sideline to pretty much nobody. And I don't know how many times we've seen that in the Kevin O'Connell era. That, like, why? I mean, it's third and two. She's like, hand the ball off, get a first down.

I mean, you're dominating them with both Akers and Alexander Madison. And yet they don't do that. I feel like there is some something about Kevin O'Connell where 90% of it makes a lot of sense to me. In fact, we should praise Kevin O'Connell for going for it early on fourth down, throwing the ball very quickly to Justin Jefferson. If they punt that ball away and give up another score, I mean, you're going to feel like you're you're reeling right there, like you're falling. And instead makes a good decision on his own side of the field, which was smart to do.

First down, great call. But on third and two, whipping it down the sideline, there's just some small things every game where I go, I don't know, man, and maybe they just stand out because they didn't make the play, and if they do, then I never remember it. But sometimes I just can't believe that third and two is so difficult for this team especially with the way they were gashing the panthers and just kind of wearing them down up front um i i wonder if it's man the the passing game has looked really bad

at this point let's get them some confidence i think there's part of kevin o'connell that i mean more than part of him that just loves the fact that the past game numbers look good. And I wonder if he's chasing kind of a big play there to kind of enhance those a bit. Because, yeah, third and two at that point with seven minutes left in the game, another first down brings another two or three minutes off the clock. There's really no excuse not to run alexander madison i guess he had lost a yard on the on the previous play but he had gained nine yards on the two plays before that so maybe it is a bit of revisionist history from us here like hindsight 2020 but yeah third and two when you're starting running back has 5.6 yards of carry your

backup running back has eight yards to carry they're basically getting whatever they want it it does feel a bit like an overthink there um luckily it didn't come back to bite them because here here's a good segue to defense because harrison smith just went vintage on on the last drive of the game and really kind of made Bryce Young's life a living hell all day. Yeah, so the Bryce Young thing is pretty interesting to talk about. I want to get to that as well, but let's focus on the defensive side. In this offseason, we spent a lot of time talking about how Brian Flores was extremely aggressive and how this would play to the favor

of Harrison Smith. I thought during training camp, Kirk Cousins was downright irritated with Harrison Smith because of the number of times that he was blowing up plays with these blitzes off the edge that weren't being identified. And then we watched the first couple of weeks and they give up 260 yards rushing. They give up whatever number of passing yards, 40 completions to Justin Herbert. And we're going, Blitz? Like, what's happening, Blitz? Today was the ups and downs of the Blitz, the Blitz coaster as well. Because sometimes you get beat on the Blitz,

and the opposing quarterback has 120 quarterback rating and you lose. And other times you have him in a blender and he doesn't know what to do. And we saw that many times from Bryce Young. I mean, second down and 17 in field goal range. And the dude takes a strip sack that gives away the game. But in part, that's the pressure looks. Here's another like low key thing that Bryce Young was absolutely terrible at today. Checking to run plays.

He could not figure out when was the right time to check in and out of run plays. And there were a couple of times where he was going kill, kill, kill. And then they would run right into eight people. Like, I don't think you understand how to determine when you're supposed to run or pass against this D line. And then Harrison Smith was fantastic when he got his opportunities,

he made his plays. This is the Harrison Smith that we know. And I think that over the last couple of weeks, well, one, when, when the Eagles are running every play, it's not a whole lot that Harrison Smith can do to make game changing plays last week. I don't know if he was targeted a single time. PFF had him at two targets before this season, because everyone's identifying where he is and going somewhere else. But today, getting him to the line of scrimmage, letting him make these plays, they did a lot on defense, including stuffing the run very effectively throughout that I expected them

to do. And I guess it's a week to week league for a reason because the opponent was so much different than Justin Herbert in his prime throwing to an elite wide receiver versus Bryce Young not knowing what to do with football. Yeah, I think there's probably a bit of a happy medium here, right? Like the Vikings aren't this terrorizing defense that's just going to make the opposing quarterback feel so uncomfortable the whole game. And they probably, question question mark probably aren't the defense that's going to allow a really good quarterback to throw for 400 yards and slice and dice them everywhere

up and down the field i think they probably exist somewhere in the middle but today they looked really really good because of like you said the aggressive style of defense that we kind of were expecting the whole year. This is kind of, if this was the Bucs game, if this was the season opener, and this is how the defense looked, everyone would be like, oh yeah, this is the Brian Flores defense that we were expecting. It took three weeks and an 0-3 start to see kind of what this looks like. And again, I caution caution it's not going to look like this every week because there are weaknesses across the defense but this is a guy

Brian Flores who has pretty much had success everywhere he's gone minus having the worst defense in the league his first year in Miami because of again the talent but if he has the right players and he has one player in particular, Harrison Smith, that he can use kind of all over the field in the way he wants to, I think we saw a glimpse today of what it could look like. And it was just a really impressive game from Harrison to kind of dial back the clock a little bit, at least on the surface. You watch the first three weeks and you don't really notice him and then you watch this week and you notice him everywhere on the field

three sacks the strip sack obviously that ends up going for the touchdown basically single-handedly ends a comeback attempt on the final drive of the game by sacking Bryce Young twice and then hearing him talk after the, it's all not that surprising because this is kind of how he's been throughout his career. But he's saying that was just an opportunity for me to make a play. No one on this defense has really made a play to this point. It was my turn this week. It might be someone else's turn next week. We have to kind of keep this thing rolling. Kind of modest words from a guy who's never really been one to tout himself but make no mistake like Harrison Smith was always going to be a key to this defense

Kevin O'Connell said as much in his postgame press conference today he said talking to Brian Flores right after the Vikings signed him in February or hired him to be their their defensive coordinator one of the first things Brian Flores said is like, we need Harrison Smith back. And you see why today. So yeah, he was great today. He deserves all the praise that, that he's going to get. I'm sure everyone and their mom's going to be writing about Harrison and they should. But I also caution moving forward

to not have so much whiplash with this, which is bound to be a roller coaster ride with this defense. They're not as good as they look today, I don't think, but they're not as bad as they looked last week either. Yeah, I totally agree. And I mean, it's just going to be talk about a roller coaster. I mean, although Justin Fields played really well against the worst defensive football today, but Kansas city, Chicago, San Francisco, you're facing two of the best five offenses in the NFL over the next couple of weeks. But I think when we're talking today, we do have to look at Brian Flores and say, the one thing that we knew was that he was going to use the personnel better than Ed Donatell and Kevin O'Connell he layered one in there he layered a little like yeah nice to have him being used in

this kind of way or whatever I mean we all knew with Harrison Smith he needed to be playing at the line of scrimmage and he did and he made plays and I want to talk about another big player here that Kevin O'Connell has talked about but that is is in a second, Dane, because our show is brought to you by PrizePix. I don't know if you've ever heard of PrizePix, Dane, but pretty fun. In fact, I went three for three and had a great day today in PrizePix. We have a brand new segment each week where I go through all of my picks. All you have to do at PrizePix is pick more or less between two and six player stat projections. I nailed them all this week, so you get a number for a player.

Kirk Cousins, X number of yards. You pick more or less, and that's it. That's all you got to do. PrizePix.com slash purple. You can use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. The reason I like it, it's cheap, it's quick, it's easy, and you can turn 10 bucks into 250 with just a couple taps on your phone or your computer. It's great. prizepix.com slash purple with the code purple. Daily fantasy sports made easy.

Make Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL, part of your game day. Order online during our Pizza Pizza pregame, one hour before NFL games, and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave. Either way, you win. And speaking of winning, everyone scores with convenient delivery or our in-store pizza portal pickup. So grab some friends and enjoy a few slices during the tastiest hour before kickoff. You know who made things easier for the defense, Dane? Marcus Davenport. I mean, this guy has taken more shots in press conferences of Kevin O'Connell saying,

really could use Davenport hey uh you know that Davenport guy if he's back we're better you have to give it to him he was right Marcus Davenport absolutely mauled the Carolina Panthers today yeah um I I think it's kind of a good thing for obviously it's a good thing for the Vikings because his impact showed all over the field. We asked different members of the Vikings defense, where was the biggest impact Marcus Davenport was noticed today? And everyone kind of said the same thing everywhere. He was. I mean, he seemed to be everywhere.

You saw kind of the vision of bringing him in, what type of player he could be. But I say it's a good thing for the Vikings because it was almost this entire time, Kevin O'Connell being like, got no answers on defense, but when we get Marcus Davenport back, we're going to be better. And you started to be like, are they is this just like a scapegoat situation like are they actually going to be that much better how much pressure are you putting on this guy by like one guy coming back into the the mix turning around a whole defense um and again i'm going to keep saying it but like this is not going to be the norm moving forward because they're going to play much, much tougher competition.

But for today and today only, like if we're just talking about that, yeah, Kevin O'Connell might as well have been a prophet saying, wait until we get Marcus Davenport back. It's going to look way different. It did. It was interesting to see the different ways that he showed up. And you could tell, like you go back and watch the four snaps he played in week two against the Eagles. Just did not happen. He only played four snaps on the opening drive. It's very obvious why he ends up sitting out pretty much the whole game.

He obviously did not play in week one against the Bucs or in week three against the Chargers. But watch him this week when you go back and watch the tape, and we both will, they were moving him all over. They were rushing him from the outside. He was rushing from the inside. He was winning matchups. He had one play where he had a six-spin move.

I think DJ Wanham actually ended up getting credit for the sack. But when we go back and watch that, I wouldn't be shocked if they add a half sack to Marcus Davenport because of the way he was able to impact that play, which ultimately ended with Bryce Young on the ground. He was great today. And talking to him postgame, he's a pretty eccentric guy and really interesting. He was super hard on himself. He was like, yeah, I didn't play the game that I needed to play today. And he was really hard on himself about his conditioning. He said, I need to get my conditioning up so I can be on the field for more defensive snaps. I think he played like 62-ish percent of the snaps today or something. I think he obviously

wants to be closer to 100. I don't think Marcus Davenport's a situational pass rusher. I think he's a guy who plays every down, and I think that's kind of the expectation he has for himself, at least talking to him today. So hearing him kind of say that, maybe there's another level he can get to, and if there is, maybe the defense will just continue to progress and get better with Davenport on the field, because no disrespect to C no disrespect to CJ Wanham he had a scoop and score touchdown today that turned the game on its head but he is not Marcus Davenport and it's pretty clear why the Vikings went out and got this guy watching the way he impacted the game today I mean Davenport in 2021 had nine and a half sacks and was graded as one of the better edge rushers in the NFL.

I mean, so we know that the talent is there. And when we would watch him throughout training camp and they were moving them around a little and doing different things with him. I mean, I said to Brian Flores one day, I was like, they just don't make guys this big who move this fast anymore at edge rusher or outside linebacker defensive end what do you want to call it usually those guys are three techniques at this point but he's an outside rusher and that makes him very unusual he is a legitimate weapon it's just that the whole thing about the defense in general is one layer down they have everybody healthy one layer down it's not good on the defense but if everyone is healthy like they were today

they can get after the passer with their rushers i mean there was a really big play by daniel hunter where he got held which i wish was a stat like how many holdings a defensive lineman causes because daniel hunter has caused many over the years and that was a big play because that took them back but at the same time, Bryce Young's got the ball with a chance to win the game or not win the game, but tie the game at the end. He drives down, he makes some good throws, makes some good plays. Yes, Harrison Smith comes up with those sacks, but even as they were having a really good day in a lot of areas, Carolina was able to hold on the ball in a very similar way

that the Tampa Bay bucks did in week one, where sometimes, I mean, Baker Mayfield didn't look great, but here's like a first, first down six yard completion, four yard completion, three yard completion, seven yard completion. And I was looking and it felt so weird this is probably the strangest like box score versus what I saw is 25 for 32 78 completion percentage for Bryce Young and I thought he was lost I I thought that the whole game he looked completely clueless 6.4 yards per attempt was sacked five times it's a very strange game to try to evaluate from him. But I also, we have to credit the fact that Bryce Young, they did not trust him. They didn't trust the offensive line to give him any time to throw. He got passes batted down. He didn't look like he could see very well,

which I think is a huge problem for his height. Also, I just would implore Panthers fans not to look at what happened with CJ Stroud and Anthony Richardson today. It's always going to be a little weird that they picked a guy that small over two other guys who are much bigger. But he did not look like a number one overall pick to me. He looked like a backup level quarterback that I think helped the Vikings a ton on defense, despite the fact that they were out there for a long time. Yeah, he was seeing ghosts. And actually, the fact that you bring up that he ended up completing 78% of his passes is unfathomable to me watching him in person today. I guess it's easy when I don't know what his average depth of target is, but he was throwing

a lot of quicks to the running back, you know, passes here underneath routes here check downs there so maybe that just obviously pads the stats the completion percentage and in the positive um he he looked lost today um and i i i hesitate to to say bust and but it's so early. We're a month into this kid's career, a lot of ramp way to go, but it doesn't look good when you have C.J. Stroud dominating for the Houston Texans in a way that I don't think anyone expected C.J. the Texans to be competitive this year let alone be a team that can hang 30 on on the Pittsburgh Steelers and now they're sitting at two and two Anthony Richardson

did something very similar today they end up losing in overtime but he brings the team back from pretty much the depths of defeat with the you know 15 points unanswered in the in the fourth quarter and forces overtime and he looks dynamic and all these things. Yeah, I would be a little bit concerned about Bryce Young if the Vikings defense, which hasn't been all too impressive to this point, was able to fluster him in the way that they were today. So, yeah, it wasn't good. I don't know what else to say when it comes to him.

I will say I want to give him more time, but the knock was, he's too small to play quarterback in the NFL. There aren't a lot of short guys who have done it at the quarterback position. Is he going to be added to that list of guys who, who didn't do it? We'll see. But he looked really bad today. Yeah, well, I think that there's a reason for that. And Russell Wilson probably weighs about 40 more pounds than Bryce Young does. He's so slender.

He got hit one time, and I thought, oh, that might be it, just because he had to take a hit. And when you see how big the defenders are versus him, it's a concern. And also, hey, great lesson that cognition tests and draft analysts who tell you that Anthony Richardson can't throw. There's a lot of NFT salesmen who are reporting on the draft or pretending that they're draft analysts who don't know what they're doing and are selling you on a heap of BS every year. So just something to remember during the next draft season. But, you know, we'll, you know, talk about that another day when it comes to.

But when it comes to Bryce Young, it's being said in the comments. And I saw it on Twitter throughout the day that if Andy Dalton plays, the Vikings are 0-4. I have a very tough time disagreeing with that because Andy Dalton plays, the Vikings are 0-4. I have a very tough time disagreeing with that because Andy Dalton is a competent NFL quarterback who's really good at getting the ball out quickly and not taking sacks and not making massive mistakes. And that was what really gave the Vikings the game. I mean, five sacks, one of them ends up going for a touchdown.

So the people in the comments who are not that impressed by the win, which I'm not either i mean the headline to my instant reaction was bailed out because i think that they bailed them out but we have reached the point in the podcast uh dane where we talk about what it all means to now be one in three and it means that your season is alive and i saw some people talking about it today including joel cory from c, who used to be an agent who was saying, look, all the Kirk trade stuff is fodder,

but it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for them to trade Kirk cousins. I think that that's over for the next, how many days until they play the chiefs. If they do not upset the chiefs at home, that starts to come back. Certainly if they go to Chicago and play like this, Justin Fields is good enough to beat them if he has a good day.

We've seen him have good days, and we've seen this team have bad days at Soldier Field. So I guess, in my mind, going to 1-3, beating the Panthers doesn't really change a thing about how I feel about this team or how long of a road it's going to be in order for them to get truly back in a playoff race no it doesn't do that for me either basically all they did today was do what they were supposed to and in a lot of ways get bailed out by a rookie quarterback who the game

looks too big for right now you're supposed to win this game you're supposed to win the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game in the season opener at home and you don't so there's improvement that exists there you won the game you were supposed to win I guess that's that's improvement and that steps in the right direction I don't think the Vikings have to apologize for the way they won the game because they ended up getting the victory in the end. But I don't, I think it would be wise of them to think, all right, well, the season's back on track because there were so many things that happened today that if they happen next week against the Kansas city chiefs,

you will get blown out. The fact that I don't think the comments are wrong. The fact that Andy Dalton could play today and you probably lose should not be something that should this game shouldn't necessarily be celebrated. All you did today was kind of take care of business and make sure that the conversations of blow it all up tank. Let's go getiams that that dies for about a week um but it's right back on if you get blown out next week at home and you're one and four um so maybe that's what they can lock on to is that like we actually get to talk about a football game this week um rather than are the vikings going to blow it up should they blow it up wow the desmond ritter looked really bad in atlanta today is there going to be a bidding war between Atlanta and New York? I'm assuming Zach Wilson is going to look bad tonight at home against the chiefs. We're recording this obviously before it,

it drops or before that, that game is played. All of those conversations would have existed if you lose to the Carolina Panthers today, which the Vikings't but yeah this is kind of just a way of saying my opinion on what this team can do hasn't necessarily changed based on the outcome of today and I don't think anyone's opinion on what this team can do should change based on the outcome of today yeah this, this was very much, it wasn't even a survive in advance. It was just survive. Like your season is not officially over. At 0-4 it would have been, and now there's more time. And look, I mean, we have seen many upsets in the NFL.

There's no question that there's going to be a huge favorite for Kansas City. I mean, they're going to be favored by a lot. And most people will think that they'll win, and you never know. But that's kind of where we're at. It's still after this game saying, you never know. Not saying, wow, the way they played against Carolina, I'm so much more confident that they're going to just go steamroll because there were just so many things about this game where you went,

I don't know, what am I supposed to think here? Like, yeah, they can run the ball more effectively. Yeah. Davenport helps the defense, but it was an eight point win. Another one score game. I was wrong. I tried, I shot my shot this week, Dane. I tried predicting that the Vikings would win by 20. And even when they were still losing, I was watching Carolina play and being, and still tweeting they're winning by 20. This team is so bad. They're struggling. And you had to figure there was a Bryce young disaster coming and it did. But the fact that it is just remarkable to me that this team can never close anybody out. I just never, ever close anybody out. Even when you've got the opportunity after the Wanham thing,

you get the ball back, you just convert a couple first downs, go down and score. The Panthers' defense is banged up. One of their top corners was in the injury tent at one point in this game. I mean, like, this is a team that if you're any good, you just smash their face in and then move along. It's just very hard to be like, Oh wow. I mean, they're rolling here. And I'm also starting to think, I want your opinion on this Dane,

because turnovers are absolutely luck driven. There's no question that is proven, but also if you turn the ball over every week, all the time time because your guards get beat because your quarterback is staring people down that's more than just fumbles and turnovers might be a staple of who this team is it would not be the first Kirk season that was marred by strip sacks or marred by interceptions we've seen that in the past and I don't know it's just hard to convince me that like it's all just completely random. Yeah, and before I make this point, I want to make sure I note that fumbles are bad too.

What I'm about to say does not absolve guilt when someone fumbles the ball. But two weeks ago, we were sitting in the press box in Philadelphia, and we're talking about the game they fumbled four times. Three of those fumbles felt a bit random you know brandon powell going to the ground ball gets punched out alexander madison who didn't fumble today so that's an improvement um gets punched out late i forget what the other fumble was i like but it just sometimes with fumbles it's luck based in my opinion because if you just fall on the ball it's your ball and no one even thinks about the fumble but the one fumble we

talked about from that game that was repeatable was the strip sack and that's how i feel about the turnovers today this is my roundabout point the one turnover we talked about two weeks ago against the Philadelphia Eagles was the other three felt a bit random if the Vikings fall on the ball you don't remember them but Josh Sweat coming off the edge beating Ole Udo stripping the ball from Kirk Cousins and the Eagles taking over deep in enemy territory well that one feels repeatable because we've seen that movie before the two turnable because we've seen that movie before. The two turnovers today, we've seen this movie before. The interception that Kirk threw at the goal line,

it's because he's late to the flat. It's because he's late to the flat, and in his mind, he's thinking before he gets the ball, before he steps under center and snaps the ball, well, the flat's going to be there. And the flat was there if he threw it on time, but he was was late his mind was programmed that i'm going to throw the flat he throws the flats pick six he said after the game if i wait another one two three seconds because i think he had time tj hawkinson's going to pop open but he saw the safety get hands on tj hawkinson he threw to you know kind of his pre-programmed read into the flat and it went 99 yards the other way that feels repeatable because

that's kind of who kirk cousins is like he makes these decisions that at times make you scratch your head and say like what is going on there so that one felt repeatable the the pick where kirk's arm gets hit and the ball pops into the air that one feels repeatable. The pick where Kirk's arm gets hit and the ball pops into the air, that one feels repeatable because you continue to start at Ingram, at your right guard. So, yeah, the turnovers might just be part of this team's DNA because of the personnel that they have, because of who they trot out onto the field each week.

The fumbles are one thing. If you fall on them, you know, they don't count. I get why the Vikings made such a big deal heading into the Chargers game about buying this piece of equipment and that piece of equipment because, like, what else are you going to do when you can't hold onto the ball? But in some ways that felt like that was just going to regress to the mean. And like some of these balls, they just weren't going to fumble or they were going to fall on.

But some of these turnovers concern me. It's the ones that kind of start and stop at the starting quarterback because he keeps showing he's prone to turn the ball over throughout his career. We saw two today, one a hundred percent, his fault to probably more at Inram's fault but i would still argue if you're kirk cousins like get rid of the ball it's okay like you don't have to wait until

the very last second and try and make a throw that might not have been there anyway it was dordan addison on a wheel um so yeah like the quarterback turnovers concern me because that's kind of who Kirk Cousins has proven to be at times throughout his career. And, and they feel a lot more repeatable and until they stop turning the ball over, this is kind of who this team is.

They've turned the ball 11, 11, turn the ball over 11 times through the first four weeks of the season. And I don't know if there's an end in sight. Very funny though today, because exactly what you're saying, Terrace Marshall fumbles the ball and it bounces right back into his hands. But also Kevin O'Connell didn't throw the red hanky and he should have because Dean Blandino came on TV and this is no guarantee of course, and said it would have been an incompletion.

So I think they missed an opportunity there, but it's amazing. Not only that the Vikings have fumbled this much, but also how many times the opponent has recovered their own fumbles that the Vikings, I believe have one out of maybe like five fumbles by the other team. So yes, I, the good way to put it is not all, but some, I it's always been a feature of Kirk cousins play that there's the big sack, the strip sack, the interception that can be costly when you get the bad version of Kirk. So they will come home to Kansas City.

We'll have a grand time leading into the game, Vikings and Chiefs, because it is suddenly meaningful. And the way I look at it, Dane, is in order to have a season, in order to get into the playoff race, they need an upset either this week or against San Francisco. And then you can talk me into it. But without upsetting one of these two teams, it's going to be a heck of a lot harder.

So we'll see where this goes. I think overall, this will be a game that as soon as people leave their houses to mow the lawn, to go to, you know, whatever, a dinner tonight, they will have forgotten out of their minds. This was one of the most forgettable games, I think, I can remember over the last number of years. And even weirdly, even though they're driving, I never felt like it was going to be in the end zone, and I just thought this game's probably over.

So a weird one, but I'm glad that you were there in Charlotte to cover it. We'll be back at U.S. Bank Stadium in our normal perch for next week after Vikings and Chiefs. And, of course, here on the show, every single day we are live, every night here on the YouTube channel. And, of course, all those go to the podcast feed. So thanks, everybody, for watching and playing along in the comment section. And thank you, Dane, for taking the time there in the press box to do the show.

And I will see you out at TCO Performance Center tomorrow. Thanks, man. Sounds good.