Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings fans overreacted to Vikings ugly win, Manny picks the schedule

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about how the metrics still point the Vikings in a good direction as an NFC contender and then Manny Hill picks the schedule Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here to discuss your 7-2 Minnesota Vikings. Thought I'd start there just as a reminder that the team did win yesterday against the Jacksonville Jaguars and are now 7-2 as they get set to face the Tennessee Titans this week. And then next week after that, the Chicago Bears, two games that appear very winnable for this team. So there's a lot to discuss tonight. 7.30, Manny Hill will pick the schedule as he always does.

And until then, questions, comments, thoughts from yesterday's game. You've had at least 24 hours to take a deep breath and maybe cool down a little bit after being very frustrated yesterday. And I thought it was a fascinating response from Vikings fans to what happened in this game against the Jaguars. Because I think when you pull back and you look at the bigger metrics on this team, and this is how I'm always going to do it. So when in 2022, a lot of the metrics were pointing toward this team's not

really for real. They're kind of just winning at the end of every game. They have the expected win loss, for example, on pro football reference that based on your point differential, what should your win loss record be? The Vikings right now is six and three. They're actually seven and two, but in 2022, they won 13 games and the expected wins were like nine. So it sort of told the story there, that the accumulation of the games, the defense in 2022, all those things that pointed to your team is kind of getting away with it on a week to week basis. And eventually it's going to catch up to them. And so it eventually did in 2022. And that season, I recall talking about that through the year and a lot of people not enjoying

that discussion so much because they were having fun with the season. They were liking the wins and they were exciting. And every win was, you know, gripping onto the side of your seat. And so coming back every week and going, I think they just kind of got away with that one. It didn't really play that great. Even if Kirk Cousins was saying it, even if Kevin O'Connell was also saying it,

there was a lot of pushback because there hadn't been too many fun seasons in the recent past. And it was a new Kevin O'Connell. It was fresh. He had the different culture. People were excited about that. And they were seeing a version of Kirk Cousins as a leader and as someone who's having fun playing football that they didn't see very much during Mike Zimmer. So they kind of wanted to, and I know a lot of the smart fans who also like metrics, they understood where I was coming from and you continue to listen, all of you. So I appreciate that. But I just remember there was a lot of pushback, like, Hey, let us enjoy this one. There's been so little joy. 2020 was miserable. 2021 was miserable.

2019 Zimmer was almost getting fired. There hadn't been a fun season in a long time. Fast forward to now this year, they're seven and two in 2022. They were, they got to nine and two, which is very possible for the Vikings to get there. Not if Sam Darnold throws all the interceptions, that's for sure, but it's certainly possible to get to nine and two over the next couple of weeks. And if they get there, they will have much better metrics as they do right now than the team that was eight and one had back in 2022. They are 10th in offense, third in defense, the DVOA metrics, formerly of Football Outsiders,

Aaron Schatz, the inventor of that, have always been a barometer or have pointed in a certain direction. Not perfect like any stat, but they told the story in 2022 that the Vikings were weaker than they actually looked on paper with their record this year. They're saying that the Vikings are as strong or even a little stronger than their record. So I'm following along with that. The last two games that they've won in one score fashion, they have done so with huge differentials in time of possession and in yardage. And I was looking today, I went looking for how often a team holds onto the ball for 42 minutes. And since 2000, there have only been 24 instances of teams,

not overtime games, having the football more than the Minnesota Vikings did against the Jaguars. Think of that. That's 25 years of football since the year 2000. And maybe once a year, a team ends up having the ball for 42 minutes. No other team this year has had the ball for 42 minutes in a game like the Vikings did. And so you come out of that game with a lot of the numbers looking pretty good. They are at the top of the league, number one, in terms of causing turnovers, which I know can be a little dicey, but still toward the top of the league in pressure percentage. They didn't have many opportunities to create pressure yesterday. Poor Jonathan Grenard made it to the top of the NFL in total pressures,

and then only got to rush the quarterback like 19 times yesterday. That can make a difference sometimes. But toward the top of the league in pressure percentage, opposing quarterback rating, number one in terms of the rushing defense. And offensively, they have been one of the best teams in the NFL overall in terms of scoring and the top third of the league in terms of passing expected points added again until yesterday those interceptions are going to drop that down but uh darnold's overall quarterback rating still remains toward the top of the league after a miserable game in jacksonville my whole point is that no matter what happens with the Minnesota Vikings, as long as I cover them, I am going to follow the numbers of what they say about the team. And presently the numbers say

this team is right in the mix for best teams in the NFC behind the Detroit Lions. It all says the Detroit Lions are the best team in the NFC. They're probably the best team in the entire NFL. And right behind them is Philly, Washington, Minnesota. That's that's by the point differential. And then you have another step down from that, where you have green Bay, Arizona, San Francisco, the Rams might sneak into that conversation. I'm not sure Seattle is really in that discussion. And then Atlanta as well. And they had a really bad loss yesterday.

And so if that's what the metrics say coming out of these last two games, and they especially say on the offensive and defensive side that your expected score when you have the ball and when you have so many more yards than the other team, they should have outscored the Jaguars and the Indianapolis Colts by a lot more than they did. And that is on Sam Darnold for being reckless. And he's always been reckless and he will always be reckless. And in the first couple of weeks, I remember talking about the turnover worthy play rate and how it was concerning because remember the play against the Packers where he rolled to his left, threw it right in the hands of a linebacker and the guy dropped it. And there was a lot of, Hey, Hey man, they're five

at all. Like Darnold's playing great. And he was, and overall his overall season has been a top 15 quarterback this season with a top five defense around him. And the ability now with TJ Hawkinson in the mix and Aaron Jones playing as well as he has for this team to slow it down, make life easier on their defense, stay on the field for long drives, but they have to finish them. And they did not do that. And their red zone percentage is not good enough. And Kevin O'Connell has a lot of things on paper by the numbers to work on. They threw two screens yesterday. Make it make sense. How do you throw two screens against the team that's playing their entire secondary in the parking lot? There should have been more of that. The Jaguars blitzed one time yesterday,

one time, every other play. And O'Connell confirmed that stat in his press conference today. Every other time they were dropping everybody back and they were putting all their focus on Jefferson. So the fact that there were only two screen passes, the fact that they feel like it's illegal to run three times in a row when you're in the red zone, the fact that it's third and one and Aaron Jones and Cam Akers and Ty Chandler are all moving the football on the ground and you got to get cute. The get cute thing is very real with this team. It's overthinking it. It's like aggressive is good. Think about like, if you are a daredevil, then you want to be aggressive. You want to push the limits, but if you push them too far, then you fall down the Canyon and explode into a million

pieces. And that's kind of what it is, is knowing how far to take it and when to be aggressive and when to pull it back a little bit. Third and one yesterday was definitely not a time to decide to be overly aggressive. And I also think that O'Connell has to get a little bit better sense as we go forward here of when things aren't clicking for Sam Darnold or when he's just a touch off and then adjust accordingly. Now they ran a ton yesterday. They ran 40 times yesterday and they had a lot of success with it, but I still think after the second red zone interception, that might be time to say, all right, in the red zone, need a few more runs, need to throw a couple of more screen passes, simplify it a little bit, get it into the hands of Josh Oliver underneath or Jordan Addison underneath, who continues to

kind of be a non-factor in this offense as they have now turned a lot of the attention to TJ Hawkinson. So we can live in both worlds of looking at this game against the Jaguars and saying, why did this happen? Is it correctable? How much can be better going forward? But also saying by a lot of the numbers, this team belongs right in that conversation with everybody else, except for the lions. And in these last two games coming out of the two losses against the Jaguar, or I'm

sorry, against the Rams and against the Lions, coming out of those two losses, here's what we were asking for. Stay on the field more often. Get Sam Darnold a lot more easy bucket throws. Don't always ask him to push it down the field. Run the football a little bit more. The defense, get Blake Cashman back. Stop the run, because they didn't do that that well against the Lions and Rams. Stop the inside passes, the in-routes that

are wide open every time against your defense. Get back to confusing quarterbacks more. Be dominant again. And that's what they've been. All those things are what they've been over these last two weeks. And yet it still feels like a lot of the response to the last two wins has been, this team isn't good enough. They can't win anything. What's happening next year. And that's, that's difficult for me because all the numbers are telling me, keep going down this path with this team. Don't come on here every night and say it's over. Let's look forward to JJ McCarthy. That's not what I could do with a seven and two team that is in the top 10 in offense and defense and has fixed some of the issues from the last two weeks. And when we look forward at the schedule, which we're going to do at seven 30 with Manny Hill, uh, you can see that there's

coin flip games and that there is, uh, otherwise, um, there are, you know, very winnable games going forward. And even over these final eight games, we are at the midpoint of the season, uh, technically halftime of the Jaguars game would have been the midpoint of the season at the midpoint of the season. This team is in position to even go 500 down the stretch and finish with 11 wins. And if they are one game over 500, they are 12 wins. And this is something that's really important to me is the thresholds for being considered a legitimate Superbowl contender. The thresholds historically have been, and you can adjust it with 17 games a little bit, cause it's usually been 11 games, but it's probably 12 now, 12 games

and a plus 100 point differential. If the Vikings finished with that, then they go into the playoffs with as good of a chance as anybody else. And when you talk about, cause I see constantly just endlessly from Vikings fans, we're not winning the super bowl. Okay. No one has a good chance to win the super bowl. Like no one, no team in the NFL. There's 32 of them. No one has a great chance. The lions don't have a great chance. The bills don't have a great chance. The chiefs don't have a great chance. That's just how it works. Like the parody is is so much everything is so much on one game how often is it ever really the the favorite team to win the super bowl i guess it was last year with the chiefs they have the greatest quarterback maybe ever outside of tom brady and joe montana so and he's very much on his way there and continues to be.

But okay, outside of that, the NFC, two years ago in the NFC, Brock Purdy tears his UCL at the beginning of the game. They're the better team than Philadelphia. Philadelphia ends up in the Super Bowl because they played the Giants and then a guy tore his arm

and they end up in the Super Bowl. So when you say this, okay, of course they don't. Of course they don't. No team has a great end up in the Superbowl. So when you say this, okay, of course they don't, of course they don't. No team has a great chance to win the Superbowl. Uh, any team that's not the best team has a, even a good chance to win the Superbowl, except for probably Kansas city, Buffalo, Detroit are really the only teams. Philadelphia is kind of coming here, but those are the only teams that you would say have a really good chance to win the Super Bowl right now.

And then the second tier down has teams that go deep in the playoffs all the time. And if the metrics continue to say that this team belongs in the discussion of second tier teams behind kind of the big three of Buffalo, Kansas City, and Detroit. I'm not going to sit here and say halfway through the season, pack it in guys. Let's talk about next year. Let's say, let's start doing draft Sims because they're seven and two and have a plus 64 point differential,

which is right there in the NFC with the top teams. And they have played two games where they have overall by the yardage statistics and by the time of possession and by defensively, they have been great. And they had mistakes from their quarterback in terms of interceptions that cost them from two blowout wins. They should have been, they should have been blowout wins. And to try to turn that into the season is over after winning these games is just mind boggling to me, but it feels like what a lot of people want to do here. And it also feels odd to me to write off Sam Darnold when he had such a good start to the season that for some, we've seen it happen right in front of us with this team and this offense and everything else.

And then suddenly it's impossible that he could get hot again. I'll tell you a story. And I'm not saying Sam Darnold is as good as Joe Flacco or as good as Matthew Stafford, but those two quarterbacks came to mind for me when it came to quarterbacks who got hot for a single playoffs and went through it. Uh, I, I, two, two, two stories, two quick stories, 2017. I spent most of that season listening to Mike Zimmer talk about how case Keenum was going to throw the season away. And generally I agreed with him that year. I did. I spent the whole year in 2017

arguing with people about Case Keenum. It was like my whole year was just, I was saying it's a mirage. It's going to disappear at some point. It's going to fall off the face of the earth. He's going to throw the big interception and it's going to cost them. And he actually did it twice because he got away with it in the Minneapolis miracle game. He got, and then he did not get away with it in the NFC championship. And as that was going on and I was seeing it play out, uh, I, I was very conflicted because of how fun the season was and how great the locker room was and how much the fans enjoyed that year. And I didn't necessarily want to be right. And K-Mac,

you're right. Mike Zimmer and the horseshoe thing that he said, he's got a horseshoe around his neck. He probably meant somewhere else and got to the end of it. And yes, Philadelphia beat their brains in, but I walked away from that season saying, man, I'm going to remember that one forever. And I didn't remember it for the arguments over whether Case Keenum was for real, but the games that went on and the crazy things that happened

in the Minneapolis Miracle, but also the stuff along the way, the different players who emerged, the great year Pat Shermer had, Latavius Murray, Everson Griffin getting a sack in every game in the first nine games, Xavier Rhodes, shutting out all these star wide receivers throughout that season. So you can spend your time, I guess, like talking about how they won't win the Superbowl while they've never won the

Superbowl. So how are you still here? If that's the only thing that's on your mind, I guess. But I would also say that you can also try to have some bigger picture thing here that this was a season where we had no idea what was going to happen. And they've emerged as one of the better teams in the NFL. And if something special happens here, I don't know what there is in spending the whole season talking about how they're going to lose. Like, I don't know what the value is in that. I think we can solve the

problems and we can pick apart the different play calls, double reverse, never again. I gave, this is my, I gave Kc credit for one good trick play and that's what happens right but i don't think we have to spend the whole time talking about how you think that sam darnold's going to throw picks in the playoffs so that's that's story number one about case keenum that i don't remember when i think of back on that season, boy, it was a great time arguing with everybody over whether case Keenum was for real or not. The other thing is Darnold's not case Keenum. He does throw interceptions, but he's got way better physical skills. And we've seen the upside of the rollercoaster of Darnold, but here's the other story in 2021, when the Rams traded for

Matthew Stafford and they told everybody that this was their all in move and they said bleep them picks and everything else. I was like, no, this ain't going to work. I've seen Stafford throw too many interceptions. I've seen him take too many sacks. It can't happen. And they had a three game losing streak and he led the league in interceptions and I, and they, and they were the four seed and I was laughing at them. I was like, the Rams,

they, they got what they asked for with Matt Stafford, a bunch of picks, a bunch of sacks. That's what it is. Right. Uh, so the dolphins ran a reverse for a touchdown.

There's teams that are good at, uh, trick plays. The Vikings aren't one of them. So anyway, 2021 happens. Stafford throws a very near interception against the San Francisco 49ers. Guy drops it and they go to the Superbowl and they get a good matchup against the team that had some very serious weaknesses and they end up winning it on the back of a quarterback that was below 500 and had not won in the playoffs and had a huge arm. And again, I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm saying

this is why we watch because I was completely wrong. I was completely wrong. We watch because we don't know what's going to happen or where the thing's going to go. All I can tell you is that right now they are in the middle of one of the better seasons that they've had in the last, what? Definitely since I've been here, definitely the last decade, maybe the last 20 years in terms of actually being for real on paper, as well as, you know, the point differential and everything else. So I don't think we need to do that. I think we can, as a Kirk cousins used to say, uh, he, he would say that he likes to try to be where his feet are. And I think we can do that.

I think we can talk about week to week, what happened in the last game, what needs to happen in the next game, how they can be a legitimate Superbowl contender going into the playoffs. And then if it falls apart, then we'll talk about that as well. But it was especially, I don't know, bizarre to me that after a win, two wins in a row that put this team in the driver's seat, that the main takeaway is, well, they're going to fail now because you've had some tough wins. So that's kind of been the biggest takeaway for this game against Jacksonville. It really wasn't even anything on the field for me.

It was more about the response. And I've also wondered too, has the Vikings fan base become more angsty just in general as the years go by and the disappointments pile up? Has it just weighed so much or is it the fact that we all have access to each other and we know each other's thoughts and it's really easy on game day to rage out? And I guess it's my job to try to bring you the objective viewpoint rather than going along with the mob who thinks that the season ended yesterday with a win. And it wasn't good.

I mean, it wasn't good. Like to throw three interceptions there and then the other drives they didn't finish either. They had four field goals, so they didn't finish those drives either. That's gotta to happen. But it's one game in the middle of a 17-game season that they come out with an overall completely dominating win

in terms of the yardage and the possession. And that's the other thing. If they had played yesterday and the shoe had been on the other foot, if the Jaguars had the ball all day, if they were played yesterday and the shoe had been on the other foot, if the Jaguars had the ball day, if they were moving it all day and the Vikings got away with it, then my takeaway would have been very different. My takeaway would have been, Oh boy,

there's some problems here that I don't know how they can fix. The only two losses this team has are by a total of 12 points this year. It's just, it's, it's really hard to look at this team objectively for me and say, Oh no, this team is actually bad. That's, that has not been my takeaway. So your, your thoughts, opinions, takes Manny Hill will be in shortly to pick the schedule. Uh, Zoomer Kev says, did you think the lions were going to lose yesterday? So I was on a flight during the game and I did not have wifi-Fi to pull it up on my phone

or a video thing. So I only got home just in time to see the end of that game and see the game winning field goal and then went back and looked at what happened and Goff's interceptions. But that's another one where I saw some Vikings fans bring up, I think fairly, that even the best team in the NFC can have a game where stuff goes wrong. Now golf has a much better history and the history matters.

It 100% matters. Sam Darnold has always thrown these interceptions. That matters. And being afraid that he's going to throw more of those interceptions is rational and reasonable. And even the people who are thinking, boy, if we get to the playoffs and he does that, it's going to end the season, all, all rational stuff. So I I'm not at all saying, Hey, put aside the criticisms. That's what we do here.

We spend the whole week picking apart what was good. what was bad the entire week. I think what I'm saying is that they yesterday didn't divert them from the path that is still headed toward the playoffs. And then as you saw from the lions, another team has a bad day. You get a favorable matchup. It's not, it's not just get in and anything can happen, but if they end up with 12 wins and they get in, then you're as strong as anybody going in. That's really the goal here. And that's where the standard needs to be set. If they can get to 12 wins, 11 is good, but 12 would be really the bar. If they can get there, then they can go into the playoffs as strong as anybody. And in my opinion, that would be a very successful job in the regular season to give them a chance.

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Manny, I don't know. I know that you've been a better man than me when it comes to logging off the internet, but it's also a major part of the position here to engage in conversation yesterday. How about this, Manny? You've known me a very long time now. Yesterday, I was being accused so much of being a homer after a win that someone

suggested that if I didn't cape for the team, that they would pull my credential, which is also funny because I'm a member of the Pro Football Writers Association and it's against the rules. Roger Goodell would step in and say, no, you can't, you can't pull media members credentials for being a critical. So that's really not the case, but that's, that's kind of where we were at yesterday. It was a very angsty, very frustrated fan base. Uh, before we get into you picking the schedule, uh, how did you feel yesterday? Wait, so you're telling me after your code words rant back in 2018 that your credential wasn't pulled no it was not no it was not in fact uh i can't even i can't let's let's just say that there were people at that time who heard the rant and agreed with it that made decisions after

it based on their agreement. So I'm not saying I did it. I'm saying that the response to Kirk Cousins 2018 season ending press conference, I was not alone in the way that I responded to that, that there were also other people inside of the building and maybe who represent Kirk Cousins who agreed with it. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. I only bring it up because I was randomly thinking about it the other day, by the way. That's the only reason why it popped up in my mind.

And because for those who haven't been longtime listeners, I also smacked the glass back when we were working radio and i said you hear this manny i smacked the glass uh that yeah that the year the year zero attempt from kirk cousins to spin positive no i mean that's that's part of i've felt like i've been in a weird position lately, Manny, because even in 2022, I was the negative guy who was looking at the numbers going, guys, I don't think this is going to keep happening. And with every win piled on more, yeah, you stupid numbers boy, why don't you take your

numbers and throw them in the trash? Because this team's great. And then the numbers ended up turning out right. But I went through all the numbers ended up turning out right. But I went through all the numbers before you popped in. They all look like this team is a second tier challenger in the NFC with the first tier being one team. And Detroit kind of got away with one yesterday. And the response to Detroit's win with five interceptions was, you see how resilient this team is. They can win a game because of dan

freaking campbell and the response to the vikings win with three interceptions is that they should end the season now and go to the draft yeah well i i was even seeing some should they make the switch to nick mullen's stuff yesterday too. I mean, I, I'm not as, I'm certainly not as active on Twitter slash X or whatever as I used to be, but I still go on there just to kind of see, to kind of take the temperature of the room, so to speak, of just see what, see how everybody else is feeling. A lot of times I'm just silently watching and it's,

it can be really fascinating. As far as how I'm feeling about watching and it's, it can be really fascinating. Um, as far as how I'm feeling about yesterday, listen, I, I kind of giggled when the game was over because it's kind of like, all right, good. It was a weird game. And Sam Darnold kept throwing the ball to the other team and they still found a way to win the game because the defense was outstanding and the jaguars stink so i mean i at this point and maybe i'm not even the right person to to sort of have sort of a neutral feeling on this but i i'm caller i'm having so much fun just following this team because they have already like done more than what I was expecting them to do at this point that if they're just finding ways to win games in a weird

way like they did yesterday I'm good with that just take that w and you just you just move on and some people are going to hear me say that and be like oh you're just being a homer you should be you should be more pissed off you should be ripping into Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold made some really bad decisions yesterday. But the nice thing is that he made those bad decisions and they still found a way to overcome it and they won the game. And now you just, you take that win, you go over the tape, you look at what you did wrong, you make some adjustments if necessary, and you get ready for the Tennessee Titans next week. And, you know, the thing with Sam Darnold is

I'm not surprised to see that yesterday. I was a little disappointed because I was expecting him to play better, but I'm not surprised to see him have that type of game yesterday because we've seen Sam Darnold have games like that in the past. That's why he is on his fourth team in the NFL now. So I think you just you take you take the win. You get out of Dodge and you just turn your attention out of the Jack to the Tennessee Titans. And you just hope that what Sam Darnold did yesterday doesn't repeat itself this coming Sunday.

There's kind of a spin the wheel of Darnold thing that is so unpredictable where let's say that the wheel has 20 squares on it or whatever they were in Wheel of Fortune. Let's just say that it has 20, 20 squares and you spin the wheel. And 10 of those squares with this team and this offense are, he plays awesome and you win. But then there's five squares that say, he's going to cause a little bit of problems that you're going to have to overcome. And there's five more squares that are, it is a catastrophe folks. And you landed on catastrophe yesterday. You never really know what's going to happen. And I think the biggest criticism coming out of yesterday is that when Kevin O'Connell realizes that he's landed on a, it's not going so good square, his response is often to say,

let me just push through it. Kind of like if you're driving your car and just to mix a couple of metaphors in here, you're driving your car and you hear a clank clank clank you should probably slow down and not be like i'm gonna speed up and see if it gets worse or fixes it and he ran the ball he ran the ball a lot but he still threw 42 drop backs for sam darnold in a game where they didn't need that two screen passes unacceptable to me two two screen it's just unacceptable you should throw 10 when your guy is like that that was a kevin stefanski answer for kirk when bad kirk showed up he would switch to all right we're going to throw a couple of those screens we're going to try to mix things up here and that should be an answer for kevin o'connell

so i think you can both say that there were things that needed to be corrected without going all the way to the end and talking about how this is over. Ryan Tannehill should be the quarterback, which I saw somehow on the interwebs and all of those things. But yeah, it's a real funky day to try to break down a game because the score, I mean, how many games have ever ended 12 to seven? That was a score of Gami game, I think, but I don't think it derails where the train is going. That's the biggest takeaway for me is yeah, you got the win and it, I didn't see anything yesterday that made me think, well, they'll just never, they'll just, they're going to, they're going to melt the rest of the season. It's never going to happen. And, uh, you know, K Mac says, uh, this team is good

and has the defense to continue winning. Darnold isn't going to commit three turnovers every week. Hopefully, however, we'd like to see more of the three, four TD games. One last thing before you pick the schedule, and then we'll get back to your questions and comments a little later, but you can keep sending them is the reputation of the team and the coach dictates how people respond to a win like this. If the Pittsburgh Steelers win 12 to seven, everyone would say Mike Tomlin, you old dog. Look at you winning a 12 to seven game. That's Tomlin football, baby. Pittsburgh, hand the ball off, throw a bunch of picks, and win with defense.

If they did it, how about Jim Harbaugh, who's just running handoffs behind a fullback over and over and over again. Nate Tice had a thread of handoffs behind the fullback. He's playing 1994 football. He wins a 12 to seven game. That's Harbaugh. That's just Harbaugh, man. How about the Kansas City Chiefs? They block a field goal to win. They get outplayed by the Broncos. They block a field goal to win. Mahomes, he just

knows how to win those one score games. It's amazing. the Superbowl kids city, but because O'Connell is the pass it all the time guy, the lean into Sam Darnold that we've got just to Jefferson. We're going to throw every play. We're going to be aggressive and all that. When you have a day like this, it's just a different discussion coming out of it. And again, I'm not saying anyone's wrong for breaking down the things that cause them to not score more points that's the right thing to do but i just think it's funny when i turn on the tv and they're talking about how awesome it is kansas city won that game and how the homes has this amazing one score record and all that and i think here we are burning down tco performance

center because they didn't beat the Jags by enough. Yeah. I mean, it's, well, I mean, you factor Sam Darnold, Sam Darnold's reputation into that as well. I mean, I think people have been kind of, because Sam, for the most part, has played well this year, people are still kind of in the back of their minds waiting for that other shoe to sort of fall off or whatever that metaphor is. They're just waiting for the catastrophic Sam Darnold performance that I could say, see, see, that's why Sam Darnold has been, you know, that that's why he's that's why he's a bust.

That's why they should have kept Kirk or that's why, you know switch to Nick Mullins or whatever the hell people may have been saying yesterday. Which the Nick Mullins stuff makes me laugh because this is the same Nick Mullins that everybody was mad at them for keeping because they thought that Jaron Hall should have been given that roster spot or whatever was going on. So, yeah, I think a lot of it is just reputation. And, you know, at this point, again, I can't harp on it enough. I mean, what they've done so far this season is, and again, I'm not saying don't criticize, just enjoy everything and ignore the flaws. laws but i think people have to just sort of find that balance between going absolutely nuts about a 12-7 win and you know the pie in the sky sort of mentality and i think just really just kind of enjoy the fact that this team is in the conversation uh to certainly make the playoffs and maybe depending on the matchups make some noise in the playoffs. And look, I mean, Detroit got away with one yesterday.

I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a quarterback throw five picks in a game and win. I mean, I can't. Maybe that Rex, I don't know how many picks Rex Grossman threw in that Cardinals, the Bears are what we thought they were game or whatever. I remember Grossman throwing a lot of picks in that game. But I've, you know, the Lions got away with one,

but we know how good they are. The other side of that is something, I mean, you're not wishing for this, but what happens if something happens to Jared Goff and he gets injured and he's out for the season and you're not wishing for this, but what happens if something happens to Jared Goff and he gets injured and he's out for the season and you're the Vikings and you're sitting right there, there's an opportunity for you. So I think we just have to kind of look at this team at seven and two, look at what's ahead of them on the schedule, which we're going to do here in a moment. And you just kind of enjoy this ride and you just hope they get two more wins before the schedule starts to get a little bit tougher if you you beat Tennessee next week and you beat

the Bears after that at Soldier Field you're nine and two and you're sitting in pretty good shape and I would imagine the the Lions at at worst the Lions will be only one game ahead of you so I think you just have to kind of let this thing play out and enjoy the ride. So let me say this, though. They have set the standard 7-2 plus 64-point differential right there in the mix with the best teams in the NFC. That's where they are through half a season. There's a long way to go, as we're going to talk about.

And the way I look at these last two games is that they were beat downs, except for, except for not finishing in the red zone. And over the long period of time, it's kind of like the baseball concept of, if you hit it hard in baseball over and over again, you might have a bad stretch where they catch it. But if you hit it hard, if you, the barrel percentage, if you barrel that ball up over and over and over and over again

you're going to end up on the right side of it right basketball is like this too where a lot of coaches will say i only look at the quality of shots i don't even look at that went in because i know if nefisa collier is taking a wide open shot from the free throw line that's a great shot for us that's just how i think cheryl ree Reeve looks at it. Or Chris Finch probably looks at it as a wide open three for Mike Connelly in the corners. Good shot. If he misses it, well, we still got a good shot and he's going to make that 50% of the time. He just happened to miss. I look at it that way for out gaining the other team, 800 to 400, the last two games. If you keep out gaining teams holding on to the football completing passes to t.j hawkinson moving the ball on the ground in the run game and playing great defense you will

win more than half your games the rest of the way that's how i'm viewing this however if they continue to do this and stumble and score 12 points, my mind will change. I got a tweet from somebody early in the season. You were saying this, and now you're saying that things change, my friends. And I, and I will change as the, as the weather changes for opinions. If you go to Tennessee and you win 12 to seven and you do this again, I will be more concerned that you, you can't finish in the red zone and that you can't complete these drives and that this strategy isn't working. If you lose to Chicago, who's melting down as a franchise, then I will be more concerned because these are the games you have to win.

So I just don't know what's going to happen, Manny. I think this is the theme of this season in general, is I always felt like for the last five years, I knew what was going to happen. Even when they were winning all those games that were eight and one, I still felt like in 2022, I think I know what's going to happen here. They're going to fall off in the second half. Then they're going to lose in the playoffs because Donatello and that defense and everyone's going to go, what was that worth? Because you gonna go what was that worth because you didn't get the draft capital and you didn't clear out the salary caps and that's what happened

and i felt like in i mean in a lot of other seasons in 2020 going into it they're gonna rebuild the whole defense with no money spent uh okay and then oh they're not gonna trade anyone at the deadline because they think they can make it. And then they come just short. Like I felt like I knew, I still feel like I don't know where this train is headed this year. And that's what makes it interesting. And I guess I want people to have some appreciation for that, I suppose, because that's how I've been feeling this year. Gifting is hard, but here's a hint. Give the gift of connection from U.S. Cellular. Not sure what that means? Here's a slightly more specific hint. You can choose four free phones and get four lines for $90 a month from U.S. Cellular.

Your family wants new phones. How do we know? They told us. The good news is that compared to wrapping presents, you are great at getting hints. So take a hint and get them four free phones and four lines for $90 a month. U.S. Cellular, built for us. This team is like, this team represents the epitome of a Rorschach test. Where you're just kind of like, there's, there's a couple of different ways you can kind of look at it. And, but you're not really, you're still not really sure exactly what you're looking at. And that's what makes it fun. That's what makes it interesting. This I've

told you before, this is the most fun I've had watching this team since 2017. I mean, for different reasons. I mean, 2017, after a while, you saw how good that defense was playing. You thought, okay, yeah, well, maybe this is a team that can actually do this. But again, it was also kind of similar because you had a quarterback that was playing well more often than not, but also would kind of do things that kind of made you scratch your head like, come on, Case, what are you doing, man? Like, don't do that. Don't make that throw.

You know what I mean? And they were kind of getting away with it because the defense was playing so great. And it's kind of the same thing with Sam Darnold where he'd make some plays and you're like, Sam, don't do that. What are you doing, man? But they're still finding ways to win

because the defense plays well and they're well coached. This is, this is just fun. This is fun because even, you know, even sort of the, the difference is that you don't, you didn't have those high expectations going into it. And the fact that they're playing well, and you don't really know how this is, I said this at the beginning of the year like i was really intrigued by how this was going to play out because i just didn't really know and um i it's just it's just a lot of fun i'm enjoying this so i i just can't get super apoplectic about like them winning 12-7 now to your point they go into tenn Tennessee next week and it's the same kind of game and Sam Donald

throws three more picks and they win 13-9 or something like that, then yeah, it's going to be like, come on, enough of this. Let's get back on track here. Let's get back to the team that we saw earlier in the year that blew out the Texans 34-7

that dominated San Francisco let's get back to that a little bit the first half against Green Bay etc etc but I think because of the unpredictability and the not really knowing how this is going to finish is what makes this really intriguing and fun the other part of it for me is that the team, and if you win a game with defense, you don't have to give it back. It's not worth half. If you win with a great defense and this team overall has had a great defense this season, you're allowed to do that. That's why you employ 53 and not just 11 on the offensive side. But I think that you really hit on the part for me that when the reaction goes so far over the top after a win, that the team, I think for fans about the state who tune in on Sundays to watch the team,

that this would be one of the more likable teams that you've seen in a long time. Combine them with the celebrations. The Ray gun thing was hilarious. How much they play for each other, how much they like their coaches, how different the vibe is from even 2019. They went to the playoffs. They were a good team. They outscored their opponents by a hundred points and everyone was miserable. And the coach almost got fired. That's how bad the vibes were even going back there. And then

they just kept doing it. And the vibes continued to be bad until Mike Zimmer lost his job for the following two seasons. After that, the 2021 season was by far the most miserable season for any locker room and team that I've covered. But even 2019 wasn't that different. You had Zimmer criticizing Kirk left and right, taking shots at him, and they were winning, and he's still taking shots at him in the press conferences and things like that. In 2021, they're fighting each other on the sideline.

I mean, just what the heck is going on? And this team, they play for their coach, the defense. Everybody's got ownership of it. There's so many good players. And I just think that this isn't really that we have to, we have to play it as it lies. So we can't just have one standard fits all and just say, well, if they're not winning the Superbowl or I'm not convinced through eight games or nine games, they're winning the Superbowl, then they're worthless.

That's pretty tough. I understand where that comes from, which is many years of falling short of the Superbowl. But I also feel like that's a very tough thing to do. That's a very tough approach to have. And it doesn't feel like you get to enjoy football very often in doing it and this here this team they put together which is an underdog group they hit the over if you bet the over at the beginning of the season you nailed it uh they hit the over at the halfway mark of the season and you're saying the coach needs to give up play calling they you

can't wait till next year get rid of darn old allold, all the stuff. It's like, Whoa, K can we, uh, can we watch the Tennessee game first before we get to actually just one last thing. I, all the people that they, they wear it as a badge of honor. I watched 98. I watched the seventies. I said, I've seen all the things to bat it's badge of honor. And you, and you've earned that folks, you've earned the right through all the things to bat. It's badge of honor. And you, and you've earned that folks, you've earned the right through all the torture of this team's history to talk about that stuff. But the off season is really long. So you've got plenty of time to talk. Hey, when they, when Parker Romo misses a field goal to lose the next two games and the season falls apart. Then you could come back and say, you knew it because the seventies then that's okay.

Uh, but I don't think that any of that has anything to do with what's happening this year, this week. So that's, that's where maybe the approach of some fans is different than mine is like, I'm here covering a game against the Titans this week from a good team playing a bad team. Let's see what happens. And by the way, I saw 98 too. I'm born and raised in Minnesota. I've been a Vikings fan my whole life.

I remember 98 just like the rest of you guys do. I remember 2041 Donut in 09. Too young to remember 87 when Darren Nelson dropped the pass at the goal line. But I remember all that stuff too. My stepfather played in three of those Super Bowls that they lost. Okay? I get it. But, like, even despite all that, I can still kind of keep a level head and a rational mind with all of this.

I just come on Vikings fans. Just have some fun. This season is fun. This is the most fun. Everybody has to admit. Everybody has to admit. This is the most fun we've had following this team since 2017. If you don't,

if you disagree with that, you are lying. Okay. It would be really funny if you pick the schedule here and just picked every game as a loss after, because that seems to be how that seems to be how everybody feels. So I don't know. I felt, I felt the need to have a discussion about this after yesterday, because I was hit with a flood in the comment section yesterday after the win. And I just couldn't think of too many other times that they came away with wins where there was so much outpouring of frustration. Then I went to the KOC's press conference today.

And beforehand, we were just chatting, you know, the writers and stuff about the messages that we got from people and sort of comparing notes of, yeah, somebody said this to me and somebody said that to me. Like, are you guys okay? So just an angrier nation now. And that's why this is happening. I don't know. Maybe that's the case. So let's get to picking the schedule because I know that's what everyone has been waiting for. The Minnesota Vikings, believe it or not, are 7-2. And they will now face the Tennessee Titans in Tennessee. Will Levis time. He is back in the lineup.

Manny, do the Vikings win or lose against the Titans? God help the Tennessee Titans if he's starting again. Yeah, I think the Vikings are going to take care of business again. I do hope it's not as ugly as yesterday was. But, you know, if you kind of look in the numbers, the Vikings,

despite the final scores of these last two games, you know, being one possession games, Colts game was one. Yeah, that was what? 21-13? Yeah yeah that's one possession um you know despite that i mean they have really statistically dominated these last two games um which i think is a good sign i think you just have to limit you know try your best to limit the sam darnold boneheaded turnovers which we've seen the last couple of weeks. I think there'll be able to do that against Tennessee.

I think they'll take care of business. I don't think it'll be 12, seven. I think it'll be a little bit better than that. I think they'll get things back on track and come away with a, with a pretty good win. Eight and two going to Chicago. And you want to talk about this. This is what we're saying.

We're not saying you have to start forming a Super Bowl ring to put on your finger for the Vikings but just look at Chicago look at Chicago I mean melting melting into the earth that franchise that the Vikings will go play I'm not entirely sure there's I'm still not sure they're going to face Matt Iberflues twice this year because of how much that thing is falling apart but this time i don't think he gets fired in the next two weeks november 24th at soldier field a noon contest do the vikings get to nine and two man how many times did caleb williams get sacked yesterday was it nine times eight times nine times something like that just real let's pause here and have a discussion about this because this is why it's great to pick the schedule because we talk about what everybody did yesterday

that's the trick of picking the schedule is caleb williams this flawed or are they this dumb that's what i can't figure out because i'm starting to wonder all the things that got ignored about caleb williams he's a rookie so i'm not declaring it i'm just saying all the things that got ignored about Caleb Williams. He's a rookie, so I'm not declaring it. I'm just saying all the things that everyone said, hey, generational, generational. Don't worry about the fact that he led college football and fumbles. Don't worry about the fact that he had the lowest, one of the lowest PFF grades in the nation went under pressure last year playing college football, that he threw interceptions,

that he would have trouble when he ran into adversity in college. And when he lost games would, I know there's the crying thing, not so much that, but the sitting on the bench, the, you know, the body language and the putting the towel over his head and the just not looking like a pro quarterback whenever he ran into problems and he is now running to problems and gone right into a giant rut. I think they should be a little concerned there, especially as they watch Drake May, who has a much worse team and Jane Daniels, who just looks like a superstar. Yeah. I mean, and again, shout out to the Patriots, man, like and Drake May for just being a team that is really really low on talent but they're just playing hard for Gerard Mayo and of course I'm a little biased because

Gerard Mayo played at Tennessee and all of that but that team plays hard there's not a lot of talent there and they're trying to compete they're trying to do whatever they can and they came in to they went into Soldier Field yesterday with a purpose. And yeah, the Bears just, they just look like a total mess. They look like a team right now that is on their way to being three and 14. Like, you know what I mean? And they've already got more than three wins already.

But, you know, we kind of talked about this, like maybe for as well as Caleb Williams was playing a few weeks ago, maybe the competition has kind of stepped up a little bit. I mean, certainly not yesterday. The Patriots, one of the worst teams in the league in terms of talent. But, you know, when things started to get a little bit more challenging for them, how are they going to, you know, what sort of Bears team are we going to see? And so far, they really have not been able to answer the bell. And this really looks like it's going to spiral out of control.

I mean, how do you only score three points against that team yesterday? I don't understand that. Well, you're right about Gerard Mayo, that he's pulled together that defense in a few games this year that they've been able to be close and competitive with. But, I mean, that was their last game where they'll be favored this year. You look at the rest of their schedule. It's all tough games the rest of the way they are in a lot of peril and they're going to do the thing that happened to Sam Darnold, which is his first coach got fired because the team didn't fire the coach

before drafting the guy. And then you got to switch coaches midstream. It happened to Trevor Lawrence too. I wonder how many times, and maybe it's a chicken and egg thing. Maybe it's the quarterback wasn't that good. I wonder how many times, what is this three for the bears? John Fox is the coach when they draft Trubisky. Matt Nagy is the coach when they draft Justin Fields. You just, I think you have to start fresh with that guy. Uh, even, uh, even

Tua, Tua recovered from it, but he got started off with a coach that wasn't necessarily on his side from the very beginning. You can't, you can't have a kid to save the family anyway. So did the Vikings win this game or not? Yes. Yes. Okay. Nine and two. Yeah. Arizona. We've been kind of shouting out Jonathan Gannon all season long. Arizona. We kind of spotted it early on. This team's playing hard. So the nine and two Vikings come back home after three straight road games to play the Cardinals on December 1st.

What will happen there? I know we don't have a lot of time to get into the New York Jets, but I was giggling yesterday when that was going on. Anyway, yeah, the Cardinals, I'm impressed with what I'm seeing from the Cardinals. They seem to, a few weeks ago, they were kind of that team where they're like, I don't know, who are the Arizona Cardinals? Are they good?

Are they competitive? Are they not great when they're getting blown out? What is the deal with them? I think they're okay. And I think this is going to be a tough game. I think last week when I picked the schedule, I picked this as a loss. I'm going to call this a win for the Vikings. Really?

Wow. Yeah. call this a win wow yeah so that would be two straight or two five win stretches in a row with the two losses in the middle for the vikings to 10 and 2 manny this is why we do this every week because you know they beat the jaguars 12 to 7 you're right back to a 14 win season okay 10 and 2 beating the cardinals i i there's a loss in there titans bears cardinals i don't know which one it is that's how i would do it i but i don't know which one uh falcons you're not gonna do this you're not gonna go they lose to the falcons after saying that they're gonna win five in a row i am gonna call this a loss terrible after what happened yesterday with kirk they lost

the saints i know but that's this league that's the way this league has been like you just can't figure out the atlanta falcons are kind of that team too where you're just like they are a typical kirk cousins team where it's just you don't really know. When you think that they're not supposed to do well, they do all right. And then when you think they're supposed to play well and dominate and take care of business, they kind of no-show or they just get, you know, you get what you got yesterday. So I think this is going to be a game where the Vikings are 10-2, feeling great, and everybody's going to be kind of bagging on Kirk. And I think he comes into U.S us bank stadium, puts together a decent performance and the Falcons come out and find a way to win.

And it'll be, there'll be some giggling, I think, but I think it'll, uh, I can kind of see that happening. Here's where I'll back you on this, even though I don't think it plays out this way, but I'll, I'll back you on it because the teams that have beat the Vikings, the lions and the Rams, what did they have in common? They had weapons. They had lots of players to throw at the Vikings defense yards after catch passes underneath to open guys. And they had veteran quarterbacks and neither one of those quarterbacks are particularly mobile. I mean, Stafford is a little bit more, but it was mostly just a willingness to pick apart the defense, get the ball into the hands of playmakers. That's what Kirk can probably do better than anybody else on the remaining schedule outside of Jared Goff. Fair enough.

It's your bit. 10 and three bears December 16th with an interim head coach come to a U S bank stadium. what do you think happens there they're tenant vikings 10 and 3 going in this game i'll say this is a win for now um it will be interesting to see if this is the first game of the interim coach because we kind of see and we kind of saw this with the saints yesterday right like dennis allen got fired last week and this is the first game i don't even know who the interim coach is i've never heard of him or anything um but it's the first game with him and you just get that every team has that sort of that first game with the interim coach boost you know and they kind of play well so i think

i'll call this a win because i'm starting to think maybe uh uh iberflues will get fired maybe like a week or two before this game and then the reality will come back in and then the vikings will come away with the win but if iberflues gets fired going you know before this game going into this game could be interesting 11 and 3 going out to face the Seattle Seahawks who are in a weird place they just cut a starting linebacker who played 98 of their snaps I'm not sure exactly what's happening there there was a question yesterday someone asked me and I think that this should be allowed uh if the Jaguars game still counted as the letdown game and i think the answer is yes that that is that it actually did count as the letdown game they just got away with

it and uh got the win so they go out to seattle as an 11 and 3 team uh do they win this one uh i'm gonna call this a loss just because mean, we're getting into the point here where, you know, things are going to be really interesting. I think, you know, late in the year for the division. And I think there's going to be a fourth loss in there somewhere. So I'll put it here with the loss on the road at Seattle, which again, I mean, the Seahawks are kind of another one of those up and down teams where you're trying to figure out exactly who they are, but that still can be a tough place to play with a pretty loud crowd. The Seahawks might still be in the conversation for a playoff spot at that point, or at least like the division, because that division is really tight.

So I think, you know, going on the road out there, tough crowd, I'll put that down as a loss. Okay, that would put the vikings at 11 and four with the two games at the end packers and the lions uh are the packers playing right now so do you know the is that who's playing tonight i'm like when i travel i get lost who's playing i think the packers are off this week oh they ought to buy this week yeah tonight is the uh rams and dolphins okay i knew i didn't see the packers play yesterday okay rant oh dolphins are winning this game okay yeah when i when i travel i completely have no idea what's going on yesterday just quick story

my phone was dying and i needed to keep it from actually expiring so i could get an uber to the game and uh so i didn't look at it at all like if i if i even send a text this thing could go so i got to make sure i could get an uber so i was looking at the uh clock on my computer and i'm thinking all right i've got plenty of time it's 10 o'clock or whatever then i get outside get the uber get in the uber and look at his clock and realize my computer's still on central time and i am much later than i want to be for this football game i still got there in time but like that's that's how brain scrambled i get uh when i have to go on the road anyhow so 11-4 facing the Green Bay Packers at home December 29th. Yeah, the Packers are just a hard team to figure out right now because they're good. I think they're very good. I think

they're well coached, but this thing with Jordan Love and his health and just, you know, is he going to make it through the season? Is he going to be too banged up? Will he even be playing at that point? It's going to be hard to figure out. So I'll put that down as a win for the Vikings at home just because of the uncertainty of what Jordan Love is going to look like by then. 12-4, and then we're just going to assume that Campbell's playing his players. I just don't see him ever benching his players headed to Ford Field. Yeah, I think the Lions will have the division

and likely the number one seed in the NFC locked up. But to your point, I think Campbell's going to play his all of his guys just to stick it to a divisional opponent, because that's just that's just how he's built, man. And put the Lions down as a victory there to go into the uh going to the playoffs going to that that first round by is the number one seed on a high note so that'll put the vikings at 12 and five all right so you've bounced around a little bit after they lost against the rams i think you got down to 10 and then went back up last week to 11 and this week back to 12 now part of this is just mathematical it's not entirely you riding the wave. It's a little bit of you riding the wave, but it's also just the math.

You get another win here and it's crazy to think about the rest of the season. If you go five and three, one game over 500, essentially, like, cause you know what I mean? Uh, and you have a 12 win season which would be where in the last 20 years how many 12 win seasons or more of the vikings had in the last 20 years it would be 2022 it would be uh 2017 17 and then 2009 there wasn't one in between right right? Not of 12 wins. 2015 was 11 wins. 2012, the big year for Adrian was they went 10 and 6. Yeah, not a lot of 12 win seasons. Not a lot of 12 win seasons. So if that's how it plays out, then they will deserve a ton of credit for that.

And that's why we're trying not to lose perspective. And like I said, if this doesn't happen, if they don't get to 11, 11 is the bar for me. If you get to seven and two and you finish with fewer than 11 wins, you have been a letdown. You've melted in the second half. You're going to go in as a team with very little chance to actually compete in the playoffs. And if that happens, my tone will be very different than it was today after a victory. Just so everyone remembers, let's answer some of these questions, Manny.

Thank you for doing that. Always great. I look forward to it every Monday. Matt says, you think tight ends become really valuable for Darnold in the red zone. Feels like they're forgotten down there. What is your explanation? I mean, I watched it play out right in front of me. Jacksonville has

one of the lowest press boxes in the league. So your high school level watching that close to the field. And it's a great view. And I couldn't really figure it out with Darnold. I honestly think that something snaps in his brain and he's just, he just goes, I can make that throw, and he tries it. And I don't know how to resolve that, man. I really don't. I don't know how to resolve that. And then sometimes that happens, and he makes the throw, and it's amazing. And sometimes he does it, and he makes the throw, and it's brutal.

But to the point there, Josh Oliver had the touchdown last week. He's had a few of them this year. Giving him answers right in front of his face is probably the best way to do it. And maybe just eliminating Jefferson from the, from the conversation. Like, I mean, the other team is just gonna put so much effort into Jefferson that it has to be Hawkinson. It has to be Oliver. It has to be Aaron Jones, somebody somebody else because trying to force it to him just not going to work down there especially when you get down in you know inside the 10 yard

line of the red zone where there's just you just have less space to work with it's a lot easier to see doing anything easy against you know doing anything against anything against Justin Jefferson, I don't know if you can really label it as easy. But, you know, there's just so much more, like, just a lot less space to work with down there. And so it's a little bit easier to just put two bodies on Justin Jefferson and just kind of take him out of the conversation. And that's okay because that should open things up for opportunities for other guys. I mean, Justin Jefferson's never really been a large, like guy never been a huge touchdown guy. He doesn't get a lot of touchdowns.

I don't think he's ever had double digit touchdowns in a season yet. But that's okay. I mean, everything he does for you leading up to when you score touchdowns is elite and it's the best on the planet. So I think I would like to see Sam Darnold kind of utilize, you know, you got TJ Hawkinson back. That's that's another weapon for you to use down there. Josh Oliver's made some plays down there as well. You know, you can utilize Jordan Addison a little bit, get creative with him down there as well. You know, you can utilize Jordan Addison a little bit, get creative with him down there as well. Like you have options to work with, you know, Aaron Jones is another guy you can kind of lean on in that, in that area as well in the passing game. So I think for Sam, he's just

got to realize like, yeah, throwing to Justin Jefferson is good. It's what everybody wants. It's, it makes the most sense most sense you know when you're trying to just move the ball but when you get down towards the end zone it's okay to throw it to somebody else because it'll work because they're paying a lot of attention to number 18 which means they're paying less attention to 87 84 3 33 etc. Checkdowns in the red zone can be really good. We see them score touchdowns all the time. Everybody takes the wide receivers. The running back sneaks out into the flat.

I don't know too many times this whole season. I've seen this man checked out. That I think is a big part of it is he just, and yesterday when he threw the pass to Jefferson that got picked off the one that was to the right side and into the side of the end zone that I think he meant to be toward the back pile on and just didn't get there. Aaron Jones is right there in the check down and he waves his arm. I'm open. Wasn't that like third and one?

It's like third and one or third and two or something like, come on, Sam. Come on, dude. Check it down, bro. Check it down, bro. Check it out. Sometimes, sometimes not on fourth and eight, but sometimes,

uh, puddin Tane says, um, I still believe next year and beyond our true chances, but this is a fun season. This is another part of the discussion for me, Manny is before the season. I wrote,

I wrote a column about the six and a half win Vegas line. And what I wrote was if you can't win six and a half games with this team, then I'm going to have a tough time believing in you going forward. Now they've already done it. So this season is actually hugely important to buying into what you are long-term. Remember they will negotiate contract extensions with the coach and the general manager. And if this is how the operation is going to go, if you have a locker room that believes in their coach, if you're overachieving versus expectation, if your quarterback, though very flawed at times, is wildly overachieving anything he's done before, your defense is elite.

And I'm assuming Brian Flores is going to keep being here with Kevin O'Connell for a while. And mostly the operation between the general manager and the head coach and going out and getting Cam Robinson and building a roster that can be right there in the mix with the other top NFC teams. There's a lot that's happened that points well toward the future. And that I think is another part of it where I have a very tough time saying, oh man, that one play call, get rid of O'Connell. When the bigger picture on this whole thing is

it is set up pretty darn well for JJ McCarthy for the future. What's happening now matters to the confidence level that I have for what is going to happen going forward down the road. And if we're going to be so focused on the future, if we're going to be so focused on 2025, 2026, 2027, these sort of key years and the development of JJ McCarthy and everything, that what we're seeing so far this year should be exciting and we should be able to kind of sit back and enjoy it. Be be critical when it's necessary, but take a moment to enjoy what we're seeing this year, because to your point, it does bode well for the future in a, you know, ideally it does really bode well for what we plan to see over the

next, uh, over the next couple of years. So I, I, I just hope that everybody can, you know, yeah, we can be excited about 2025, but also factor in what we're seeing this year is a good sign that 2025 is ideally going to go very, very well. True Lee says, do you think Sam's play is affected by the weather? I truly don't know, but both days that he's been really bad this season, it was dreary. That's the best thing I could do. It was cloudy. It was not fun. When I was down there i i thinking oh yeah

you're going to jacksonville in november this is great i get off the plane it's pouring like oh okay and then the next day it's sweltering by my standard not by the jacksonvillian standard but then it's incredibly humid because it's been raining and I'm walking from two miles away where they drop off the people from Ubers and I'm just soaked. And I get into the elevator and the woman who runs the elevator looks at me like, are you okay, sir? I just, I'm from Minnesota. I just am not used to this. This is not me. And she was like, it's pretty mild today. I'm like, not for me. So anyway, maybe there's something with him in terms of being a little wet

that he doesn't throw wet football as well. I don't really know. I honestly think that he played okay outside of just three decisions. I mean, it's more than that. There were other opportunities in the red zone, four or five throws that you just went. I don't know. There was not a comfort there that had been in other games. It's hard to explain why.

That in a way is like sometimes quarterbacks in the NFL who aren't perfect. If you go through the game logs of all flawed quarterbacks, the Baker Mayfields, the Geno Smiths, the Sam Darnold's right in that bucket of guys who are not true franchise quarterbacks, but have a lot of talent. And this is what they do. Hunter says it's funny how NFL fans freak out if their team wins ugly nine to three kind of win and say it's unsustainable. But if a team wins a shootout, it's a great performance. Yeah. It's a lot more fun to shoot out. That might be part of it. It is a lot more fun. That could be it. But, um, I don't know. I think reputation, like we said, plays into it.

And also when your quarterback has this fatal flaw, his whole career of turnovers, and then he does it again. I mean, what is this like? This is like when if you're worried about someone's a bad driver and you drive with them and their reputation is they get into accidents and then they kind of roll through a stop sign like all of us have done before you go hey what the heck you're gonna get us killed right i think that's how it is with darnell reputation matters for everything yeah it's kind of like with the again i'm jumping sports here but it's kind of like with like the new york knicks and you know tom thibodeau coaching them and tips kind of has this reputation

of playing his guy hard minutes, long minutes and everything. So now if you look at a box score and you see Jalen Brunson played 39 minutes, then the minutes police comes out. And it's just like, Tibbs, he should have, you know, he should have taken him out earlier in the game. And why do you have Brunson and Cat playing 40 minutes and all of that stuff? It's just sometimes the reputation just kind of precedes whoever it is.

And, you know, I mean, I, I don't know. I, I just, I think it's fair to be critical. I think it's very fair to be critical of the things that we saw yesterday. But I, I just, I have a heart. It's, it's, it's almost like everybody was like Jerry Burns on his meltdown when he, when they beat the Rams back in, I don't know what year was that? 89 when he had his famous meltdown. Like, and that was the same kind of thing. Like they won a game in overtime on a safety and they kicked like seven field goals in that game. Like they didn't score any touchdowns and everybody was mad at Bob Schnelker, the offensive coordinator and Burns. He goes out in front of the media and he goes on his rant. And then I can't remember who it was. I don't know if it was like Bob Sansevier or somebody was like, Burnsy, did you guys win this game?

And he just goes, I think we did. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, you won the game. Just, you know, you, you, you. Now the other side of that though, I think, and we've heard like Nick Saban say this a lot of like it's sometimes it can be a bad thing if you don't play very well and you still find a way to win because then everybody's just kind of focusing on getting that win and then you have the tendency to not pay attention to the things that you did wrong

and i think that will be important for kevin o O'Connell to do this week with the team is like, all right, we found a way to win. That's good. One, it was a little bit ugly. We need to limit some of these turnovers and get back on track because even though the Tennessee Titans are a bad team, they have some players that can cause problems for you. Jeffrey Simmons, interior defensive lineman. You've seen that be kind of a problem for many, many years, the Vikings line.

So I think there does need to be sort of a focus on, all right, we won that game. How do we make sure that yesterday doesn't happen again? Because if it does, we might not be as lucky. Never play Madden says vikings dominate almost everything against the lesser team with any better luck it would have been a blowout only one interception was really awful the tipped one was not too bad i mean normally you get a maybe a flag there or jefferson knocks out his hands tipped interceptions are always pretty random but the other two were were pretty

bad uh they were bad it was a bad throw the well the luck about it is that flip a coin on every review because you just have no idea i saw the ball laying sideways on the ground and the guy not having it fully secured but apparently they saw something else maybe it was because it was dreary outside maybe there was a reflection off of the screen that they're looking looking at every week it's just this new what are the rules type of thing i've seen that catch overturned a million times who knows so maybe that maybe he's right about that bad luck part of it hey at least we saw we finally saw a face mask on a quarterback get called. We did, yes. It didn't work in the Vikings' favor still, but hey, at least we saw that get called.

They do actually call that apparently. What Sam Darnold needed to do was point his face mask as his head was getting ripped off against the Rams like Mac Jones did. Tyson says we need to use Akers more and have him line up in the backfield with Jones. I love two back ideas. I don't know that Kevin O'Connell is ever going to do that, but, uh, I acres is one of those guys where sometimes his yards per carry are not the highest, but I feel like he just kept grinding and just pushing and finding a way to get positive yardage and wearing down the other team and all that sort of stuff. He just runs really hard. He got a lot of work yesterday. Ty Chandler got in there and

got a few carries yesterday. It was unnecessary maybe to bring Aaron Jones back in the game after he got his injury. I guess the argument was that he wasn't going to do further damage. It must've just been bruised and maybe a bit of a pain thing. But, uh, yeah, I, I, I like the fact that they have cam acres that if Jones went out of the game, otherwise you would be very concerned.

And instead acres, it wasn't the best game from cam acres, but you just trust him a lot more. Uh, Lou says outside zone runs, uh, outside the tackles have been huge for Aaron Jones. How much lack of interior runs is the O line?

I think it's part. It's just Jones is a main part of that. He's really good at getting to that outside. They did this in Green Bay constantly getting to the outside, hitting the edge. They do have better tackles than they do interior. What I just can't figure out for the life of me, man,

when it's third and one, how you just don't hand the football off. It's the easiest thing to do. I can't figure that one. That has been such a, and the numbers back this up. O'Connell throws twice as much as he runs on third or fourth down and short. And I think if you took out the QB sneaks on the third, fourth and inches, you'd get three times as many passes as you have runs. That's one

where when people question the play calling, I agree with that, that I just cannot really understand why they don't run on those short yardage situations. Doesn't doesn't cam makers just seem like a, and I don't know if there's numbers to determine this or not, but doesn't Cam Akers just seem like a guy that's just on third and one, he's just money every single time. And you could probably say that

about a lot of running backs, but I just look at a guy like Cam Akers, and this is certainly no knock on Aaron Jones because I'm sure Aaron Jones is very good in these situations too, but I just look at a guy like Cam handmakers and it just seems like, yeah, if you hand the ball off to him on, on third and one, fourth and one, whatever, he's just going to get it because that's just what he does.

He's just that good at it. I don't, I don't know. I just, it would be nice to see them just keep it simple. Again, we kind of, we've kind of said that about KLC a lot, or just like Kevin, just, just keep it simple. Third and one, just run the ball. And you know what? If you don't get it on fourth and one, just run the ball. You'll get it.

Or at least mix it up. I mean, right? At least mix it up. Because I think that that's what happened with the Jaguars. And I have to look back at the play. I usually watch the film back on Tuesday. But I think that's what's happening lately is that every team knows their tendency. They've put so much out there that with the passing on third and short that teams know that they're, that that's what they're going to do, that they are going to pass the ball there

and they send pressure. and i think that hurts their chances this might be a really wild take do you think a on on a third and one or fourth and one whatever a hand a fake hand a play action and a and a bootleg for sam donald would work you mean having a run yeah just like having a run not like necessarily rolling out and passing but and a bootleg for Sam Darnold would work. You mean having a run? Yeah, just like having a run. Not like necessarily rolling out and passing, but it seems like that could work because he's mobile enough.

I don't know. To me, I think it just kind of speaks more to your point of just mixing it up a little bit because you have some have some options there and when you're kind of doing this when you're when it's third and one and you're like chucking the ball 30 yards down the field when you don't really need to or if it's third and one and you're shooting for the end zone like i i know that like we've seen that play work because Justin Jefferson is great, but so I'm just, I'm a, I'm a big, keep it simple guy. You know what I mean? That that's just kind of how I roll.

I don't, I don't, I don't know why we're not seeing more of that. I don't get it. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a bunch of different ways you can approach those third and shorts. The easiest one is to just take that tight end that you paid all that money to be the best blocking tight end in the league. And he absolutely is. I hope everybody saw it. I don't know if you could see it on TV when Darnold threw the interception that didn't matter. Uh, that got called back Josh Oliver through a human being, I mean, launched him at like, if you were, I mean,

people use sack of potatoes or if you were just tossing bricks or something, he took another person and just heaved him across the field. Like this is the strongest dude in the league. Run behind him. You've got a fullback run behind him. I mean, yeah, the, the, the sin family says QB sneak it twice. QB sneak it twice. QB sneak it twice. Just there's no reason to be running drop back pass.

Like you said, so maybe a little trickery or a little, I don't want to say trickery because the trick plays drive me crazy, but a little bit of misdirection or something like that. Like there's options, there's options there. And, uh, it is a little bit crazy that they just continue to go back to because you know what i think a big part of it is o'connell has this thing where he needs to show sam darnold he believes in it and i think it's a great approach because think about what the opposite is and how that worked with consistently showing the quarterbacks you You don't believe in them.

It's not the approach you need to take that Mike Zimmer took for all those years with Keenum and then with Kirk Cousins. So I like that, but you don't have to do it at every turn. You don't have to do it on every third and one. You don't have to do it on every, you know, this would be a fair criticism when people, we got in the fights with people about the play that Darisaw got hurt. And it's like, they just hand it off. I mean, it's, I don't think he got Darisaw hurt, but also it was, Hey, if, if I just

get, you know, get enough yards here to get it, give Darnall the chance. And sometimes this has paid off the 97 yard touchdown definitely paid off, but I just don't think, like, against Green Bay, you kick a field goal, the game is easily over. And no, we're going to try to throw into the end zone to Aaron Jones, that high red zone area, the 25 to the 15, where it seems like we got to take shots into the end zone, put it on Darnold. Kirk was great at those.

I don't think Darnold is. And sometimes you just have to say, it's not really his day. So I'm going to dial it back a little bit. And especially on that third and one Aaron Jones, you run all day. That defense was exhausted. It's handed off. So there's, there's, there's play calls where I do the same thing as you guys in the U S Bank Stadium press box,

I will sometimes yell to the other writers about things like this because it's open air. So my voice isn't going to travel with the screams and the crowd and everything else. I can't do it in a closed press box like Jacksonville because then everyone will hear. And sometimes in the press box in Chicago, it's especially awkward

because it's really jammed in and quacey and like the front office people will be sitting right behind us i can't really necessarily or maybe would be rude to say everything that's on my mind with some play calls like that but i don't know you got a full back you got three tight ends just run up the middle do you think koc will you because, I mean, he's his third year as a head coach. So I don't want to, you know, give him too much of a pass, you know, because he's got enough experience now as a head coach. But we've kind of seen like the really great head coaches in this league. We've seen them kind of grow and evolve where, you know, yeah, I think Andy Reid is kind of a perfect example of this,

of like Andy was a great coach in Philadelphia, but like he's an even greater coach now in Kansas City. Yeah, obviously having Mahomes helps, but we've seen Andy kind of evolve over the years. And, you know, I'm not saying like Kevin needs to like completely overhaul his system and all of, and, and, and his philosophies and everything. But I just wonder if it's one of those things where over time, we're going to kind of see him kind of evolve into, you know, as he becomes more and more, as he gets more and more experience

as a head coach, he's, we're going to kind of see some of the things that maybe bother us now are going to kind of slowly fade away as he gets, you know, further and further into his coaching career. It might just depend on the self-awareness level. I will say that there was a real test for he and Flores coming out of those two losses because the, the red lights were on like this was concerning of what happened in those two games the blueprint was out and if they kept

doing things the same way that they were doing them they were going to have a meltdown and they were going to fall apart but then we we saw longer drives. We saw running the football better, an underneath approach to TJ Hawkinson. We saw the defense resolve some of its problems and really play two ridiculously good games. They did not give up a touchdown against Indianapolis that was scored on the fumble. And then they give up one against Jacksonville. These last two games, one touchdown. And a lot of that I think is who you're playing, but also it's adjustments that they've made as well.

That teams have not been able to do the same stuff to them, especially the run. These were two running backs, Jonathan Taylor and Tank Bigsby, and also Travis Etienne is talented. These are two teams who have run the ball well, and they couldn't run the ball at all in these last two games. I think that's adjustments from Brian Flores. If there's a self-aware getting the play call in faster, stop having those fault. I mean, the false starts sometimes, you know, not much you could do, but the delay of games unacceptable, getting a play

call in faster, putting more of a, putting more of an emphasis on that. Those have been good things from KOC. I think that there is some self-awareness there, but I also think sometimes Sue here is right, saying illusion of complexity is so good it's confusing KOC himself. That is what can happen sometimes, where you just try a little bit too hard, a little too complicated, and you can mess yourself up so i know on thursday night you will not mess yourself up with tennessee titans favorites we did get your list in uh tyler dunn and i agreed you were a little chalky with the

jacksonville jaguars but a great list nonetheless and so on thursday night you will have your tennessee titans list and uh i am very excited to find that out so thanks uh for your time man i really appreciate it man always a good time and uh we'll see you on thursday very good