Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Tuesday Morning Left Guard: Jeremiah Sirles breaks down Vikings-Colts, both problems and potential fixes

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

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It's strong and dependable, exactly like playing tight end. Just like the incredible players we sit down with on the podcast, the Chevy Silverado is in a league of its own. Strong, advanced, and dependable. Download TE1 today, wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, welcome into our first official episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard with former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. And Jeremiah, we have to start out with you discovering that the Minnesota Vikings are bad because it's kind of a fun story. In fact, I think that there are some Vikings fans who will be jealous of you.

So why don't you explain how you discovered the Vikings are not good at football through the first two weeks? Yeah, so last Friday, so the Friday before week one, I left for basically an eight- to nine-day elk hunting trip completely off the grid in Colorado. Self-service. I couldn't get self-service if I wanted to. And I was totally okay with it. So we did the pre-show last week talking about

how Vikings, Packers, and I thought that, you know, I think the Vikings can win this game if they do the right things. And I think that they have a chance. And I know we're a little young in spots. So I go on my elk hunting trip. Even on Sunday, I'm sitting in the elk blind. I'm like, I wonder how the Vikings did today.

Like, I bet you they won. So then I get back get back out and so go through the rest of my week and I get back and so I'm driving home yesterday from uh to Ponus Colorado middle of nowhere so I get up through and into Wyoming where I finally get some good self-service and I was like let's check in on my bikes so I pull up like let's see how they did last week. 43 points, I believe, were the points that they allowed Aaron Rodgers and the Packers to score. So I was like, oh, my, that's not very good. That's actually terrible. And then so then they were actually playing, and so I pull up the score,

like, well, how are they doing today? And it was the middle of the fourth quarter. I was like, oh, so terrible. So this is, yeah, so I instantly called Matt here, and I was like, what is going on? Like, what am I walking into here? What are we looking at? He goes, you're going to need to watch the tape. You're just going to need to watch this tape and see for yourself,

because he's like, I can't tell you what I'm looking at here. It's just bad. So I was able to not live with that Packers loss for a week, which Vikings fans probably are jealous, because I'm sure you guys are nice. Well, I got to ask you this, Matt, is the sky falling in Minneapolis right now? Oh yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, the tank for Trevor thing is all over the place. You know, it is really interesting though, because after week one, it was like, oh, what a terrible loss. And can't believe that the Packers are still that much better than us and the defense is going to be bad and everything else but I think if they had beaten the Indianapolis

Colts and played a good game on offense everyone would have went okay all right it was weird circumstances no OTAs and excuses or whatever and Rodgers got hot and maybe Zimmer didn't realize how bad the corners were going to be and so forth. And then you could sort of sell yourself on, hey, you get a win against Tennessee at home where you should win, and then you go to Houston. They're not very good. They traded their best wide receiver, so they're going to lose a lot of games. And then all of a sudden you convince yourself, hey, this could actually be a pretty fun season.

But the way that they lost to the Indianapolis Colts, if it had been a three point loss, a field goal at the end of the game or something, I think everyone would have went, okay, well, this might not be a great season, but it could still be fun. After that, it was, this is not even going to be fun. This is just going to be painful. So let's talk about to start what went wrong and then we can see if we could try to fix it. So after you watch the tape, let's just start with the offensive and defensive line. Pat, that was my analysis after watching it back.

Not good. Not good. You tell me which one you want to start with, offensive or defensive line. Let's start with the defensive line so my blood pressure is risen nice and high by the time we get to the O-line. Okay. So, well, let's just begin with this. Yannick Ngakwe was good.

He did his job. See, I'm going to disagree with you. Okay, all right. I disagree with you. All right. Because his one strip sack, if you watch the tape, is on a cadence issue on the offense. Okay. The left tackle is still in his stance, in his stance,

when Yannick takes off. Bam. Strip sack, they get the ball back, and you see Chad Kelly and Phillip Rivers talking back and forth like, oh, I thought it was on this, no, it was on this, back and forth. And so I don't count that. That's a garbage sack. Like, that's a stat pattern.

Like, yeah, he's going to go up as a sack fumble. It's going to look great. But if you watch the tape and you look at it, he didn't get there. He got there because of a cadence issue on the offense. And that was really kind of the only time he got there all day in my opinion um I think that the big thing is as I'm watching this tape is the one thing that's not jumping off the screen is like there's no constant pressure I mean you're so used to it's Everson or it's Daniil or it's Brian Robinson or it's Tom Johnson or even Linville pushing up the middle, right?

And there's just no – I mean, Phil had all day to throw back there. And I didn't get to grind through the whole Green Bay tape, but I'm going to assume it was a lot of the same. I'm going to assume it was a lot of the same because if Aaron Rodgers puts up 43 points, it means he wasn't getting pressured. It means he wasn't getting hammered. It means he wasn't getting thrown to the turf and all that fun stuff. And then you even look at, okay, well, how are they trying to generate a pass rush? Well, they put Anthony

Barr at rush in. And I mean, I love Anthony. And I think that even he's gonna be the first one to tell you that's not really where he wants to be or where he feels like he's best at. And now he's gone. So now you got to dig even deeper into the bag of tricks to create a pass rush. Because as you said, alluded, the corners are a mess. I mean, they're all over the place. And so if you don't have a very good generated pass rush, your corners are kind of getting left out to dry, and you go against two Hall of Fame quarterbacks back-to-back, week-to-week, those corners' confidence is going to be any lower.

So I think the first thing is the complete lack of pass rush generated by everyone on there. Afadi had some good rushes where, again, we talked about he's going to be a power rush guy, right? Punch into him, punch into him, punch into him. He just never really got to where I'm down. I mean, I think the Colts only ran like 45 plays. Or, no, it might have been the Vikings only ran 45.

The Vikings only ran 45 plays. So that defense was fresh. Rivers didn't pass a ton, though. They mostly just ran the ball over and over and over and over again. Right. And if you can do that, then that's demoralizing because this defense is built. It was built, at least while I was there for my three years and even the last two years to rush the passer.

It was built to create negative plays on first and second down, get them in third and longs, and turn those freaking werewolves up. Right? That was the formula. And it worked great. And so I think Zimmer's going to have to basically rinse and repeat and wipe it clean than start over because nothing's working for them right now. The lack of a big nose guard that can eat up a double team.

I mean, I was talking to you a little bit when we called you yesterday, that fact that you do not have to single block anyone or double block anyone on this front anymore in the run game. Setters can handle Shamar. The three techniques, I mean, Quentin Nelson threw Jaleel Johnson to the ground, I don't know, half a dozen times. He threw everyone. I mean, he throws everyone. He's the best guard in football. But I mean, you don't have to double anymore. So Anthony Barr, Eric Kendrick, Eric Wilson, I don't care who you throw at linebacker, they've never dealt with free-running offensive linemen

just rushing to them right off the ball. They've always had them fighting through a Linville, fighting through a Shamara to three technique where I think he's the better player. They've been having to fight through Tom because he's so quick and he's trying to skinny through people. And Daniil and Everson, they've really got to make sure they chip those guys as tackles, not just give them all the tight ends

so they can block. And I didn't see any of that. I just saw guys literally leaving a hand and running. And so they're on Eric and they're on Anthony and they're on Kendricks before they even have to make a read. The lack of stoutness at the point of attack for us, I think is going to be something that we're really going to struggle with in the run game all year this year for the defensive line.

Lack of stoutness is a great way to describe something football in general. But so here's one thought that comes to mind for me, because there's two different minds to look at this through. There's through the big picture of, well, you're going to get 14 more weeks of figuring out if anyone can make progress. Any of the guys who have not played a whole lot in their careers, your Jolio Johnson or your Jalen Holmes or DJ Wanham got in the game, guys like that, and you're going to see where that goes.

But then there's also the maybe we circle back and say, you know, Snacks Harrison was a free agent, and there were a couple other guys who are proven nose tackles that were free agents, and instead you say, no, Shamar will be fine going from a three technique that mostly plays on first and second down and stuffs the run which I think is a role he's fine in to now you have to play every single snap over the center and be a nose tackle nose guard and you have to handle this role that Linval had for so long and that you were about to pay Michael Pierce 27 million dollars to have that's just not really fair to Shamar. So there's kind of those two ways to look at it is,

you know, you're finding out what you have with these, these D linemen, but Shamar is a veteran who you already know what you have there. And I think maybe they talk themselves into it. He'll be fine at that position, but it's not really fine. Yeah. I mean, he backed up Linville for those first two years before he went to seattle as the nose guard and he probably averaged 15 snaps a game at nose guard and he did fine but there's a huge difference of averaging 15 snaps and being asked to be the base nose guard in a 4-3 over cover two defense it you have to have that's like you start looking at like most important pieces of a defense of that

and it literally is like roving safety Mike linebacker nose guard like in that order and you have to have those in order to have a successful defense because you're built to have that Mike linebacker make 150 200 tackles a year right that's what we're used to seeing Kendrick Spadino do that but he can do that because that nose guard eats a guard and a tackle every single time every run play they have to because if they don't then the guard the nose tackle is going to whip the crap out of the center and make a play in the backfield and I think that's one thing again I didn't watch week one but week two is there was no negative plays like there was no like you're so used to seeing a flash and boom, negative minus run or sack or a PBU. I mean, it just seemed like the lack of negative plays, especially up front by the D-line and the linebackers,

was very, very apparent because you're so used to seeing it over and over and over again because it's happened for so many years. So my question on the D-line is how much longer do you give some of the guys who are showing you that they're in over their head? And I mean, Jaleel Johnson and Jalen Holmes specifically, like these guys just don't look like successful draft picks. And this is part of the bigger picture of the recent Vikings is in 2015, you have one of the best drafts in the NFL if not the best draft that year and you get Daniil Hunter, Stephon Diggs, Trey Wayans and Eric Hendricks and my gosh I mean you got pro bowlers and a quality starter all in one draft since then there is nothing that's been even

close they haven't landed a fourth or a fifth round pick who becomes a star or anything like that and some of these project defensive linemen that they've picked, Afadi has turned into an NFL caliber player, but I think some of the other guys haven't. And I guess in my mind, I would rather see DJ Wanham, who's their recent draft pick play, or even James Lynch who got whipped in training camp, but that's not any different than what's happening right now.

So I wonder if you think that after watching that, that there's, that it's worth giving it a little more time or if they should just start putting in the youngest people. I mean, I think eventually you're going to, you're going to become forced to a point if you're Mike Zimmer and you're Andre Patterson and you're sitting there going, what do we do? So it's not like it's too late in the season to be like, well, we just got to ride this out. Right. It's not that point where you're late in the season to be like, well, we just got to ride this out, right?

It's not that point where you're late in the season, maybe had some guys get hurt, and you're like, we're just going to ride these guys out to the end and regroup. Like, it's week two. Going into week three. Like, there is so much more to figure out, and I think at this point you nailed it. Like, it's not going to get much worse.

Like, I don't think if you throw those guys in there, it's going to be a huge, like, off-the-cliff drop-off between a Jaleel Johnson and a rookie. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think that that's what you're looking at. I mean, and so I think that you'll see some more guys get rotated in there next week, I think. But, again, it comes down to you've got to remember, too, how many guys can you dress? Right. Like, do you start rolling the dice and not even dressing some of the guys that are playing right now and say we're going to dress the young guys and let them play?

Because that's a disaster waiting to happen, too, where if all of a sudden it really is that disastrous cliff drop-off, right, where all of a sudden it's like this dude's getting pancaked every other play or he's not in his gap or he doesn't know his assignment or any of that, like, and you don't have someone to come back in. So that's kind of a little piece of how long do we ride this out before you just basically hit the eject button on some of these guys. I think they have probably another couple weeks before the true, you sit the bench, you don't dress, we're dressing James Lynch, we're dressing these guys. Like, I think we have a couple more weeks before we see that, but I don't think we're super far away. And there's certainly the confidence issue of if you put in a James Lynch who's changing positions from college and he gets absolutely destroyed, that that could be a pretty bad start for him.

Speaking of absolutely destroyed, on the offensive line, there was the question about whether Drew Samia should be playing over Pat Elfline. And last week I said on the show, hey, you know what? If you think it can't be worse, it actually can. And it was. And this is, again, this goes back to the bigger picture, where I'm not saying for sure that Drew Simeon is a bust and he's never going to be able to play in the NFL, but for that week, he was so far in over his head against DeForest

Buckner and the Colts defensive line, and guess what? Oh, it gets way easier against Jadavion Clowney and J.J. Watt, the next two guys you're going to be able to face. And guess who they're going to game plan to rush those guys over after seeing DeForest Buckner rip apart Drew Samia? Probably him. And it just speaks to this team has drafted a lot of these guys that you can see the process behind it. He played for Oklahoma. He's a big, giant, violent guy. And this should work. And a lot of times it just hasn't. And now I'm looking at that right guard position from below average with Pat trying to move positions to now replacement level or worse, where it could be if Drew Samia doesn't take a huge step forward.

And what's Kirk Cousins' biggest kryptonite? Interior pressure. And I just don't see a situation where interior pressure stops coming at Kirk Cousins yeah I mean to Fork Bussner he had his way with basically both those guards last week um it really didn't matter who he lined up against and he is one of the pro bowl I mean he's one of the top notch players at that position but if you're going to play offensive line in this league you're going to see those guys week in and week out. Like it's not like, oh, once a week or once every four weeks,

I'm going to go against this guy and draw the star around him. And no, it's every week, man. Like the three technique position is becoming one of the best positions in football. You start looking around, people have started realizing like Kirk Cousins, the kryptonite of a quarterback is getting in his face and right in his face, not off the edges, not running by him, like big body in his face quickly. And DeVore Buster is one of those guys that can do that.

I mean, he helped the 49ers get to the Super Bowl last year because of it. Right. He's one of those guys that is just incredible. And to watch him toss, not run over, toss Drew Samia was that's, that's one of those where you're watching that in the meeting room and you kind of sink down into your chair a little bit. And you kind of don't really want to look around. And the coach doesn't really know what to say because he wants to rip your ass. But at the same time, like, he doesn't want to just, like, do it in front of everyone.

So you kind of do the, you do the – you know what you did here, right? It's like, yeah, I got my feet parallel. I stood up too tall, and I overset him, and he just made me look like a rag doll. And then you kind of hope to move on and never talk about it again. But the problem is that now went viral all over Instagram, all over Twitter. And so it's one of those things of can he mentally handle the bounce back from it? Or is this something that – guess what? He's going to see that move again.

He's going to see it again. You put it on tape. Sperano was just telling me, like, hey, you put that on tape. You put that on tape for all the other people to see, like, how are you going to fix that this week? And that's really important, especially for a young player, is if you put something on tape, and this goes for any position, offensive line, defensive line, linebacker, quarterback,

like what you put on tape is who you are. And so if you put that on tape, what are you going to do now to make sure that that doesn't happen to you again? Because if you put it on tape again, then it's really coming after you, like you have a week to fix it. So can he fix the hump move? That's what that's called. I mean, Reggie Wayne was famous for it and made a lot of people look really stupid for it. Reggie White, you mean? Reggie White, excuse me. Reggie White. And so, I mean, it was that exact move, right? How many times have you seen that highlight tape of him just the club and freaking see you out the club? So he's going to see it again. J.J. Watt's going to try and do it

to him. J.J. Watt's good at it. He's got long arms. He's got good levers. And you set it up throughout the game and you usually only use it once, right? Speed rush, speed rush, speed rush, speed rush. Wham! Come back inside. So can he fix it? I mean, the other piece, too, was he really struggled in his angles in the run game. He really struggled. If he was running an outside zone and he was on the backside, he hung way too long on that interior D lineman instead of taking a good angle to cut off the linebacker.

One of which, right at the beginning of the second half, he had to go try and cut off the Mike linebacker and Leonard, who's a damn good player. And he went to try and he stabbed and Leonard just ran through and smoked Alvin Cook right in the backfield. I mean, everyone remembers it was a big one. It wouldn't have won the game if there was a crowd. And I mean, so he really struggled on his run game reads. And as a backside lineman and even on the front side, he didn't really get off the linebackers really well,

which I thought him and Dozier both struggled at times. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. They just launched their official collaboration with Bud Grant. Yes, Bud Grant. You can now get your official Bud Grant shirt and Man Cave art print. If you haven't seen it yet, you have to check it out, and we're going to hook you up with free shipping for your order. Use code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. That is SOTASTICK, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com,

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and it must be an injury issue for why he doesn't have a team because at least he was competent at that position and knew the proper techniques and how to play the spot and how to do outside zone blocking and so forth. Cause he had done it for a very long time. So at least you got competent run blocking and every once in a while, yeah, he got picked up and run back into the quarterback. But at the same time, he didn't get thrown there as a 300 pound man, the same way that Drew Samia did. And this is where we say, all right, maybe just carve out a little tiny bit of that cap space for a veteran. Like was Ron Leary busy

this season? I mean, you're going with Dakota Dozier who's never started before in his life Pat Elfline switching positions Elfline gets hurt and your backup option for him is a guy who looks like he can't play that he looks like he's a liability out there for you and all of a sudden it goes from boy this interior the offensive line is going to be tough to this it can't be worse than this uh and now here's Garrett Bradbury trying to make progress in his second season as a guy who should have a long NFL career based on his draft status but he had a rough first year the best thing you could have done for him is given him some help with those guards and instead you make it much worse so now he is not getting some

guidance from Josh Klein he's got to drag Drew Samia's ass. And it's just like I don't think they set up one of their future pieces very well here beyond just the fact that you made it really tough on your quarterback who freaks out at interior pressure. Yeah, and I will say this. I think that technique-wise, I think Garrick Bradbury looks much better. I think that his technique in the run game where his footwork, his hand placement, his hat placement looks much better. I think that his technique in the run game where his footwork, his hand placement, his hat placement looks much better.

Still a little struggle in the bull rush, right? He still got pushed back a little bit. And then he also, much to your point, he's trying to do too much in the pass game as far as helping his guards. There is one point where he's setting to the right, like we talked about. It's a protection where it's supposed to be a three-man slide to the right and the money side's on the left. And he slides to the right and he sees Dakota getting beat a little bit,

so he comes off his guy to try and come back and help to the left. And Drew's standing there looking at the linebacker, and all of a sudden this guy splits him and he's right in Kirk's face. Or there's a twist game coming and it's away from the slide and Garrett sees it and he's trying to try and block two guys with one hand. He ends up blocking nobody, right? But that's just because I can see it in the tape. He's trying to do too much because he really does think that he has to make up for the problems that they're having at the guard position right now.

And as a center, that's really hard to do because you see the guy flying by you on your left, or you see the guy creasing on your left, and you know you have to stay to the right, and it's really hard to not try and just bump that guy or take a shot off that guy, but you end up screwing both guys, and then you look really silly, so I think that's something that they're going to talk with him about is like, hey man, you just got to do your job, like I know it's really hard to like, but you got to do your job, if you're sliding to the right, stay to the right. Very simple. I thought he got some good push in the run game. His hustle, very good hustle. I like that they're pulling him. There was some good pull plays with him getting out on the perimeter and getting a chance for him to get out and show his athleticism. He missed a read one time. I mean,

it was early in the game, that first drive, maybe the second drive, they pulled Dakota and they pulled Garrett and Dakota kicked the guy out and Garrett tried to circle him. If he would have just came up inside, he could have cut them in a linebacker, but a big game for Dallin Cook. But I think those are things that he's growing still. I think he's trending in the right direction. It will be hard for him, like you said, playing next to two very inexperienced guards where, I mean, every time I was playing, even guards, I got to play next to someone who started for a long time so I could lean on them. I mean, I time I was playing, even guards, I got to play next to someone who started for a long time so I could lean on them. I mean, I think Garrett's now the guy that's getting leaned on.

And that's a lot for a year two center. I mean, that's a lot for a guy that's still really growing and developing and not hitting his stride yet. So it might hamper his growth or it might accelerate his growth. You know, he might then take that as a responsibility. Like I need to do more. Like I need to study more. I need to be did it or it can try to drain on him. And it might take a couple of seasons or might take a little bit

off this season for his growth. I mean, only time will tell with that, but I am pleased with the progress that I saw on tape of his technique. I think in the year 2028, when they finally get some, he'll be super pleased that this, this experience will pay off. By that time he'll be moved on because he'll be too expensive and they have no money, and then they're going to have to let him go and draft another center and start all over again. Well, let's talk about how to fix it because I can't get to tank for Trevor in week two. No.

And there's also – I mean, so really when it comes down to that, the only conversation to have for tank for Trevor is when you get to the trade deadline and it's do you trade in Anthony Harris? Do you you even consider trading a yannick and gawkway if you don't want to pay him and you decide after we've seen a sample of this we don't want to give him that massive contract so we're going to move him or i mean kyle rudolph for example like would rudolph want to go to a super bowl contender late in his career and maybe there's a team that needs a tight end so that that conversation will happen if they continue to trend the way that they have the first two weeks. Let's talk about it, though, in the next couple of minutes of how they can beat the next couple

of opponents, because the Tennessee Titans have shown some weaknesses in their first few weeks. They barely got by Denver. They barely got by Jacksonville. They don't look like a juggernaut just yet. And then Houston, even though they've had a tough schedule, they've gotten whooped against Kansas City and Baltimore. And hey, it turns out number one receivers who are amazing are good at football and help you. Not that that's a message to the Vikings at all. But this is my thing though, Jeremiah, is that when you look at the players on offense, aside from the guards, which are a miserable mess, Delvin Cook, really good. Adam Thielen, really good.

Irv Smith Jr. showed last year he can really play. Rudolph can still play. I mean, there's too many good players on this offensive side, and the tackles, I think, are both fine, if not good in Brian O'Neal's case. So, I mean, what can they do to not have a 15 quarterback rating? Because if they're going to win, I think we know it has to be in shootouts. It's not going to be a 17-13. And Mike Zimmer even said, we've got to change our philosophy here.

You can't just hold on to the ball all the time and then play defense. Parcells ball ain't going to work now with this team. So what can they do on the offensive side to get into some of those shootouts and to at least make it, I think at very least, entertaining for fans to watch over these next couple of weeks? Yeah, I think the big thing is they want to run play action as much as they can, right? And you saw that. I mean, first cousin completion was a big play action rollout

and he hit Thielen on the sideline and so I think that you got to go back to the well a little bit on you got to die on the run so that you can live on the pass on the play action I mean a first and second down four yard two yard you're now looking at third and five is a lot better than let's try and do a drop back and now we're sitting at second 10. And so I think that the way you can help this offense, at least, is trying to keep them on schedule. This offense looks pretty good and they look like they can be sufficient if they don't get behind the sticks. If they can stay in second and seven plus and get to a third and six plus or third and five, I think that they'll be all right. The problem is, okay, the question becomes, how do you get there?

I think a lot of it is I like the pin-pull aspect of the Steve offense. I think that if you have trouble pounding it up the middle with your interior offensive linemen, you've got to find ways to get it on the perimeter. So how do you get it on the perimeter in different creative ways? In my opinion, I think the outside zone is a great play. It's a great way, weak or strong, to get it on the perimeter, let Dalvin make a guy miss, or maybe let him race a guy to the corner and get four, right? The other way I think, and I liked it, is pulling Brian O'Neal,

pulling Garrett Bradbury, pulling Riley Reeves, getting guys on the perimeter, giving those linebackers a lot of eye candy to look at, and then have Dalvin do Dalvin things, right? Get the ball in your playmaker's hands. And then off of that, off those perimeter runs, I think you then got to go to the play action, right? And I'm not saying the play action deep to Thielen at 80 yards, right?

Like be okay with dumping it to Irv Smith in the flat and let him do his thing, right? I think we all have to understand this is not going to be a throw the ball 60 times a game type of team. If they're doing that, we're going to get killed. This has got to be a throw the ball 25 to 30 times a game, and 9 to 10 of that is play action. And it's play action because then that opens up the run game. And this has to be a pound the rock, C.J. Hamm, Dalvin Cook, three tight end sets, and die with it before you can.

I mean, I think we tried to run before we could walk on offense here, and I think we've got to go back to basics here before we're going to try and go back to the shootout guns. Get back to the conversation in just a second, but even though sports took a break, your business didn't. You have to keep moving, and that makes hiring more important than ever. Indeed is here to help. Indeed.com is the number one job site in the world

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Last year, it was over 30%. And part of that is you're down in games. And I know with Green Bay, you're going out of the shotgun and trying to throw it down the field and so forth. But if that's where you're at, he had only run maybe two play actions at all in the first three quarters in Green Bay when they were still in the game.

And then they come out in the opening game script and they run a couple of play actions, have success, and it just didn't seem like they went back to it. The other part that is a failure that I am really surprised by is not throwing Delvin Cook the football. Like, if it was me and I'm not Gary. I'm the fantasy owner that has Delvin Cook right now. I was going, preach. Yes, yes.

But I'm not Gary Kubiak and I know. I was going, preach! Yes, yes. But I'm not Gary Kubiak, and I don't have Super Bowl rings or anything like that. But just from my own thought process here, if you lose Stephon Diggs in the offseason, you don't make that up by just drafting a guy. You don't make that up by a seventh-rounder taking his position. That's just not how it's going to work. Who is the best person with the football in his hands on this team? It's Delvin Cook. And so that means turn him into Christian McCaffrey.

It's not like Christian McCaffrey runs, you know, 40-yard posts or something. I mean, Christian McCaffrey is often running little, you know, flat routes and things like that and little option routes. Those are ways to get him the ball in his hands because Carolina doesn't have a ton of amazing receiver talent, or at least over the last few years. Well, you're kind of in that position now. And to not use Delvin, at least on the other side of the line of scrimmage from time to time and throwing him the ball, I think is a fail.

And so if Kubiak is doing it kind of the same way, we're only going to throw some screens, your offensive linemen all of a sudden aren't that great at those screens because elf line that was one thing he could do really well so if i'm zimmer i'm going into the meetings this week saying if delvin cook doesn't touch the ball 30 times then everyone can just not show up the next week i mean that to me that would be the big thing we just paid him give him the football i mean more than just I formation handoffs where the guards are getting blown up find a way run the guy on a jet sweep or something like he can do a lot of things in Florida State they line them up as a receiver sometimes and send them down the field like there

are things this guy can do that they're just not maximizing yeah I think I think that's a huge piece of it is you got to get the ball in your playmakers hands and I think that the screen game is something that they just got to keep grinding on because like the great thing about a screen game and the teams that are great at screens right you start thinking about them the Kansas City Smith or Kansas City Chiefs you look at the Baltimore Ravens are really good with them it's because it slows the pass rush down a ton I mean if you got I mean why do you think the Vikings last couple years have gotten screened to death right i mean on defense like every team you knew it was coming two or three times a game on a third and big situation there was going to be some type of screen because they knew that you had four true pass rushers i mean the d tackles are usually the ones that like

kind of get stood up at this line of scrimmage and then chase down the screen like those are the guys that you make it well when the vik Vikings would put in four defensive ends they don't think screen they just think like I mean blind dog in a meat house right run to the ball and so they just run and so we get screened to death at times all I remember being there like you're gonna get at least two of them a game I think the Vikings need to say we're gonna run at least four to five screens a game maybe even on first and second now I mean do it out of the eye formation right I watched I watched uh I think the Vegas did it last night right eye formation fake the handoff roll out quick dump to the outside get 10 maybe get 20 maybe a big explosive play um so I think that that's something you got to go and yeah get Dalvin the ball and then also

I think that you got to make sure you get Thielen going a little bit. He doesn't have that. I mean, I don't think he's quite as quick and fast as Stephon Diggs was to get the separation on the long ball. He might be overall faster than Diggs was in a straight-ahead speed, but what made Diggs get open on those fast routes so much is his quickness off the line of scrimmage immediately gave him a foot of separation, where Thielen usually gets the separation if he can get two or three strides on a guy, right? And so when you don't have more than two or three

seconds to throw the football that doesn't give you a ton of time to get that operation and get Thielen open so I think you got to get Thielen on a slant you got to get him on a low drag or cross on one of those play actions just get him going get him into a rhythm a little bit because it really seemed like he after he caught that first ball he really struggled to him into a rhythm a little bit. Because it really seemed like after he caught that first ball, he really struggled to get in a rhythm after that. I'm going to check this number while we're talking. I want to see if Thielen has been really used in the slot at all, because that's one way to do it is when – hold on.

I probably just made a really loud sound in the audio there. Yeah, he's only been in the slot nine times so far this year, so it hasn't been a whole heck of a lot in terms of him, you know, getting a bunch of snaps, you know, from the slot, and I think that that might be one way to do it, is to try to... You move into the slot, you usually get that corner that's a true lockdown corner not following you into the slot. You then get a nickel put on you depending on what the formation is which gives you a little or maybe even a linebacker right you put them in a weird formation where you get them to keep base defense on the field and then you got a you got a wheel linebacker walked out over out of feeling like you take

that any day of the week and so I think that yeah I mean that's a great point get him inside of the slot because I think when we had Stephon Diggs and when we had other big bodied receivers Dillon did some work in the slot and he did some nice jobs of getting nice catches because you get the ball in his hand he's fast enough to go the distance he's not going to make the highlight reel like Diggs would of making eight people miss but I think that he's good enough and again we're talking about get the playmakers the ball those are the two guys that instantly popped to mind on this offense. Yep, 15.3% of his targets have come in the slot,

which is 103rd out of 119 wide receivers. So he's been exclusively on the outside these first couple of weeks. And that was a Pat Shermer thing. Move him into the slot one out of every three or four snaps and then get him that separation, get him lined up against linebackers, and let him use his smarts a little, you know, getting into space in the middle of the field. So potential solutions, I guess. And as we go along, we might have to talk about the trades and everything else. But at least for this week, do you think that there is a shot the Vikings can beat the Tennessee Titans?

I think there's a shot mostly because the Titans are struggling. I think if the Titans were rolling right now, it'd be pretty easy to just be like, you know, I think they're just going to come to the same thing because they've got what you call a horse at running back. And they're going to watch the tape of what Jonathan Taylor did. And, man, after watching the tape, we're lucky Jonathan Taylor's a rookie because there was a lot of reads that he just was half a step slow on or he made the wrong read and he probably left 60 to 100 yards of rushing on the field in my opinion as I watched it and it's like dude stick

with your block I'm just yelling at the screen like stick with your block follow your guard like don't try it's not college you can't cut everything back and so I mean Derrick Henry doesn't do that Derrick Henry knows how to follow his line. He knows how to do that. And they've got some weapons on the outside, man. I mean, they've got some real weapons at receiver. I think that what we just talked about, the play action, you're going to see a bunch of that out of the Tennessee Titans this week

because they're going to pound the rock with Henry, and then they're going to pull it up and go deep. I mean, they're going to go deep. They're going to test the corners. I mean, T.Y. Hilton dropped a freaking drop in the bucket touchdown pass from Phillip Rivers. That should have been another seven points. Again, we put that on tape.

So what are the Titans going to do? They're going to line up in a similar formation. They're going to do a similar play and see did they fix that. Because that's what good coaches do. They say, did you fix this over the week? Or did you say, oh, yeah, you got this and you moved on? I think Zimmer's a good enough coach, he's a defensive coach, that he's going to fix that, but they're going to test it.

And they're going to say, okay, hey, Brown, go, run, do this. Can they run with you? And can Harry get there late or any of that? And so I think we're going to see a lot of that, a lot of repeats of what killed us this past week. We're going to see a lot of that before they get into their actual game plan. I think in the opener you're going to see Tennessee go deep on us at least a couple times.

Jeremiah Searles, Tuesday morning left guard, breaking down the Vikings tape from the previous week, and I'm just sorry about that. But from this last week. It's early in the morning. Let me just say one more thing before we wrap up. Congratulations to you, sir. Your Big Ten football is back.

And good luck with Ohio State in your first game for Nebraska. Oh, yeah. The Big Ten basically was like, oh, you guys wanted to play? Oh, you guys wanted to raise this big stink? Okay, have fun. Go Ohio State, Wisconsin to open the season. Oh, okay. Well, at least you played.

We knew what we were asking for. It's better than not playing. Jeremiah Searles will do this every Tuesday or if there's a weird situation, two days after the game so you can watch the tape and break it down every single Tuesday. Tuesday morning left guard is great.

I look forward to doing it again soon, Jeremiah. Thanks, man. Absolutely, man. Let's hope we get a better win this week. The wait is finally over. Football is back. You might not be at the game this year, but you can still be in on the action at BetOnline. BetOnline is going the extra mile to make sure that you can get in

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