Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings loss to Steelers: Too much freakout? Or just right? (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about reflecting on the Vikings' loss to Steelers and looks at some favorable results for the Vikings. Then Manny Hill and Brian Murphy join. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, here, and you guys will never believe this, but it's actually true. The Minnesota Vikings got some injury news that is not catastrophic. Now, it's not perfect, but it's also not the worst case scenario for Brian O'Neill, who Ian Rappaport reported today, has a sprained MS. and he is going to be out for several weeks. It's called week to week when you think about it, how the upcoming schedule works out.

You have this week, play the Cleveland Browns. Next week you've got a buy week. And then come back and play the Philadelphia Eagles. And after that, the Los Angeles Chargers. So in a best case scenario for Brian O'Neill possibly could return coming out of the buy week. And when a guy goes down like that, and he's pretty quickly ruled out.

And then you hear anything ending with CL, you start to think, could this be another long-term type of injury, maybe season ending or something like that? But the Vikings will have to survive against a very good Cleveland Brown's defensive line without Brian O'Neill. So not the best, best case. It wasn't just a little bruise and he's going to come back. And the Vikings will have to probably manage something like this to get. him back on the field as soon as possible, but also, you know, it's, you know, anytime you have an injury that keeps you out for a few weeks like that, you wonder about the longer term within the season. But if it's an MCL, it's two, three weeks, maybe four, then you're

not losing Brian O'Neill for the season. That's maybe the best injury news that they could have asked for after Brian O'Neill goes out in that game the way that he did. But now the offensive line for this week is going to be Michael Juergens and Blake Brandl and Brian O'Neill, and it's still going to be a pretty rough ride against Miles Garrett and crew for the Cleveland Browns. Maybe on the good side or bad side, I can't really tell. It's unclear who they're going to start a quarterback. Actually, I think you wanted to be Joe Flacko because he can't move at all or really do anything. and the Cleveland Browns just had to trade for Cam Robinson,

who I guess is going to be like one of those hockey players that always gets traded at the deadline. For whatever reason, Lee Stepniak was always that person in my head that just every trade deadline, that guy's on the move. I guess Cam Robinson is going to be that way. But you know how difficult it is because we saw it last year for Cam Robinson to just come in and step in and play for a team right away. So the Vikings will have an advantage.

there. An advantage if Dylan Gabriel starts. It's a really tough defense to start again. So I'm still imagining that it will be Joe Flacco at this point, but that just tells you how bad the Cleveland Browns quarterback play has been. And so these two things combined for the main subject of this evening. And I'm interested in your questions, thoughts, comments as well. And then Brian Murphy and Mani Hill will join at 730. But after yesterday, when you, you look at the results and then you get the Brian O'Neill news, knowing Donovan Jackson is likely to come back after the buy, knowing that maybe Aaron Jones, maybe Blake Cashman, that those guys have a chance also to return after the bye week. So yesterday after the game, I wouldn't take

back a word. I think that every criticism for what happened in that game was valid, every concern, every thought about what this season could become when you see the number of sacks, the top two quarterbacks in the NFL right now in pressure to sack ratio in a bad way are Carson Wentz and J.J. McCarthy. That's not good for them. The offensive line that is still going to have to be patchworked more likely than not with Ryan Kelly, there's no way that he could just come back in a couple of weeks. So you're going to end up dealing likely long term with a backup center, are still a rookie left guard.

Christian Derisaw, I think showed some signs of rust on Sunday. And then the way that they struggled to stop the run, the way that Aaron Rogers picked them apart, all those things, they all deserve to get high rankings for concern or to hover your hand over the panic meter, all of the stuff that happened against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The fact that, yes, they lost by three,

but did they really? lose by three when they had about a four percent chance to win the game late in the third quarter. That's usually how we kind of look at those one score games, right? Was it real or was it a whoopin? Or was it, you know, kind of much closer than you actually thought or what, like, we should evaluate them all as their own games. And that was more of a whoopin that the Steelers mismanaged the end of the game and let the Vikings back in it and hang around and put up a bunch of yards. But we all saw what happened. And when you look at the bigger accumulation of everything with the entire season, three bad quarters against the Bears, four bad quarters against the Falcons, a strange, funny game that is crazy with Isaiah Rogers against a beleaguered Cincinnati team that just lost its quarterback.

It was playing Jake Browning. And that's the only time you've looked like any sort of team that we expected the Minnesota Vikings to look like. and I remember writing that after the Bengals game. It's like, yeah, that's the one. That's the team that we thought the Vikings were going to be. And then they flipped back, right back to who they had been against the Atlanta Falcons. So I wouldn't change any of those big takeaways from that game. But after looking at yesterday's results, and I also watched the film back,

I want to talk about that a little bit as well. But yesterday's results made you. made you think of maybe a little bit differently about where the Vikings stand in their chances to still have a good season, okay? And that is our Fandul question of the day, which is the Vikings have dropped down to plus 1,000 to win the division behind plus 100 and plus 125

for the Packers and Lions. Tell me how you think the Vikings could still end up winning the NFC North. Like, give me your path. What would have to happen for the Vikings? to still win the NFC North. So we go around the league yesterday and Jackson Dart is making his first start. Congratulations, young Jackson Dart.

And he beats the Los Angeles Chargers who looked unbeatable over the first couple of weeks. And Joe Alt gets injured. And that looks like it could be a long injury. Their offensive line all of a sudden is really struggling. And I saw a crazy stat that Justin Herbert has something like a 50% pressure rate over the last couple of weeks where their offensive lines falling apart, Herbert's getting pressured constantly. Now, Marion Hampton's looking pretty good, but vulnerable now after losing to the New York

Giants and having Abdul Carter rip their face off. Well, the Vikings have some guys who can rip some people's faces off. Okay. So that one looks a little bit more human for the Chargers. And then the Packers play. And they give up 40 points. Now, Dak Prescott was incredible in this game, and some of the stuff was just ridiculous. You know, the throw all the way down to the goal line where he's under pressure, just heaves it up.

I saw Micah Parsons had 10 pressures and they still gave up 40 points, which some of you said, and it was probably true, that just because you get one pass rusher, doesn't mean you have great coverage players and they've got a couple guys injured. And there's some vulnerability there with the Green Bay Packers who two, three weeks ago, looked pretty much invincible. The Baltimore Ravens are on the Viking schedule. They got killed by the Kansas City Chiefs. Derek Henry, who has never looked old, now looks old.

And their first down efficiency has gone in the tank. And Lamar Jackson is banged up. And I know that's a little ways down, but still, not invincible like it looked a little while ago. Now, Philadelphia is still pretty darn good. they got a victory against Tampa Bay, a decided win there. Still, though, Tampa Bay was able to find some holes. Amika Ibuka, who I am a big fan of going back to draft season when I was trying to convince

everybody to get on the wide receiver train. Amika, Buka had a huge play in that game. Tampa Bay hung around, even though they're completely banged up. And A.J. Brown is doing his best Stefan Diggs, not nothing with a boat and Cardi be, but with mysterious Instagram posts and things like that, he seems very unhappy and they've got some seeming drama, even though they still are the best team in the NFC, they've got some drama there, and they have not been a perfect team throughout the beginning of this season. So if you're trying to take a deep breath from where you were after the game yesterday, which

was probably the top of your skull blowing off and flames coming out, which was some of my post game as well. So I'm not saying that was just you. I think that those results gave you at least some indication that the rest of the NFC is still pretty flawed. Now, the Vikings have to show signs of being a team that can beat them if they're flawed. That can beat Philadelphia if AJ Brown, I don't know, picks up Jalen Hertz and throws them into the stands at half time, are you still going to beat them? Because the Atlanta Falcons didn't play the best offensive game ever against the Vikings and still found a way to beat them.

And Pittsburgh said, here's a swing gate door wide open to you coming back in the game, still didn't find a way to beat them. And, you know, the only team he did it to was Chicago. And on the other side of that coin, Detroit now looks great. Chicago now looks much more dangerous. They've had two pretty, you know, easy opponents to beat defensively with the Raiders and the Cowboys. But Caleb Williams does look better and he is playing better.

So it's not like this vaunted schedule that we've been talking about is all the sudden, oh, it's just a bunch of easy teams and off they go, they'll get back on track and they'll start winning and it'll be fine. But I will say that it's not quite the same level that it looked a short time ago, even when we started playing football on Sunday morning. And then we're talking about the chargers and the Packers and all these teams as being, like, there's no way to beat them. This team can't possibly do it.

And now it looks in the light of day a little bit better. So maybe some good news along those lines for the Brian O'Neill thing and then the way that things played out. And a lot of teams in the NFC look pretty flawed. I think the Rams look pretty strong. They're not on the Viking schedule. But they, you know, they looked pretty strong in their way. win against the Indianapolis Colts, but not everybody did. And, you know, the, the lions blowing out the Browns.

I mean, everyone should, but that's kind of the point about the Packers. Like, at one time through two weeks, they look unstoppable. How about Washington? Is Jaden Daniels going to be 100% this year when the Vikings play them eventually? When they play the Giants, it's likely to be Jackson Dart. And when they play the Cowboys, they won't play any defense. So, I don't know. I came away from yesterday feeling like it's not that the opportunity isn't there because

I think it still is. It's really the execution, which gets me to, and then I'll get to your comments, watching back the tape. There were a lot of times on the tape where I thought, oh man, I don't know what Pittsburgh was even doing defensively. They left Justin Jefferson open a bunch of times that was part of his big day. they were just playing these deep zones and letting Jefferson run in between them

and Wentz was finding him and there were some good moments there. The run blocking was totally discombobulated as you might have expected live and then they couldn't really stick with it because they got down in the game but I think it'll improve probably a little bit this week. Again, tough team to run against but it will improve a little bit

with just the guys getting to practice together. I thought that having new bodies in there being thrown in there really cost them their ability to run and of course pass protect as well but one of the things that comes up all the time that i think really drives me crazy is when people talk about play calling because it's this big giant thing play calling you have your third down plays you got your first down plays you got your scripted plays you got how you adjust to what the defense is doing to you how you call plays late in a game, late in a half.

And so when people say, KOC's a bad play caller, I'm like, okay, wait a minute. That would be like saying that a good NBA player who averages 25 points a game, just being like he's bad. Well, like, we've got a lot of evidence statistically that he's good, but that doesn't mean he's perfect, right?

So if you have, like, Damar de Rosen is always a great example for this, right? Like a really good scorer, but he's kind of a mid-range score. and maybe not the most efficient guy, but still, he makes All-Star games and he's good, but he's not perfect. There's only a handful of players in the history of the game who you would say are pretty much flawless in basketball. And otherwise, we could talk about,

well, this is where their strength are. This is where their weaknesses are. I think with Kevin O'Connell, we all know that at the end of halves and at the end of games, he's called a lot of really darn good plays and got a lot of very confident quarterback play, right? I think we can also say that when the opening script is executed properly, it usually works. And these last two weeks it's worked and Carson Wentz totally needed to throw the football or

and Will Fries needed to not get illegally downfield. Otherwise, the opening script would have worked. But there are some things that after watching the game, I would just kind of raise the eyebrows at. That's always the test, right? I have these significant eyebrows. And when I raise them, that means that I'm not going crazy over it, but I just maybe need to understand better. And there are several third down sacks in this game where Carson Wentz takes the snap in

empty with nobody in the backfield helping him. And when the pressure gets to him, he's looking at all vertical routes, all downfield routes. And I think this has been a common criticism from fans that's correct, that a lot of them came on these third and longs where they're really trying to convert the third and long with a 15-yard dig route or something or, you know, a comeback at 17. I don't know how you're going to do that with this offensive line. And that's where I think a specific play calling criticism. If you're going to say you don't like his play calling, I need to know how. I need to know what about it specifically is it that bothers you. I've been working on

trying to get the flags to stick. I'm sorry, they keep falling still. But that to me, there were two or three sacks where when I paused the tape, I went, where is he supposed to throw the ball? Now, some of it is also on Carson Wentz. PFF gave him three of the sacks yesterday and six of the 18 pressures that he faced. 18 is a lot, by the way of pressures, and even 12 otherwise is a lot and says a lot about where they're at offensive line lies. But there are too many times where you freeze the tape and you're like, I don't know, man, maybe having T.J. Watt try to be chipped by T.J. Hawkinson could lead to a sack. And Carson Wentz needs to throw it in the dirt. Of course he does. but why is that a play?

And that doesn't make any sense that that would even be on the play sheet knowing who T.J. Watt is. He intercepted a ball in this game. He could have, I mean, probably what Wentz thought is if I throw it, he might just intercept it and take it to the house. But he needs to throw it in the ground.

And that's one of them that went to him, I think, from PFF. There's another one where Jalen Naylor has great room on Carson Wentz's left side. And he's running like a dig route that's probably 15 yards looking on third and long, and that seems to be the main read. And if Wentz drops back, hits the back foot, throws with amazing anticipation, and puts it into an exact spot, yeah, he's probably going to get it. But, I mean, I don't even know if Kirk makes that throw.

I think maybe Josh Allen makes that throw. But aside from that, you're just asking a lot. And there were times with J.J. McCarthy in his first couple games where I thought the same thing. You're asking a lot. And there weren't many options at times in the middle of the field on these third and longs. And so it's not that the play wasn't there. I mean, if T.J. Watt gets chipped effectively by T.J. Hawkinson, well, he's going to catch a ball and he's going to get 10 yards. But what were the chances that he was going to be able to chip T.J. Watt? Two percent. I mean, if T.J. Watt got something in his eye before the play, I wear contacts. You know how that is. Contact

wearers, you get something in your eye, you're like, I can't do anything. So it's not zero percent, but it's certainly not a very high percentage chance. And I think that would be my biggest criticism of some of the play calling. Now, they also get Jordan Addison wide open for an 80-yard touchdown. They also are able to come back in the game and have a chance and all that sort of stuff. It's not that it was, it's not that there weren't chances there. They needed Will rise to not get a penalty. They needed T.J. Hawkinson to catch a ball that was behind him. It's Carson Wentz at quarterback. It's not going to be perfect probably. His sharpness for accuracy has not been ideal in the first couple of weeks. You needed somebody to make a play.

You needed also a ball not to get tipped for an interception. Then it's a different game. So it's not that I didn't think Kevin O'Connell had good plays in this game. He certainly did. And the opportunities were there, and some of them turned into huge plays. Jefferson was open three, four more times in this game. He could have had 14 or 15 catches, but it's those handful of times per game. And I think that this probably goes for most play callers in the NFL when you watch every single game is you start to get some of these tendencies and you go, come on, man, you can't run four guys down the field when you're going.

your offensive line is getting throttled on third and long. Like this is a, and I respect that they try to convert these third downs and long, that they're aggressive and they don't just have the Alex Smith thing where they check it down. But when I was checking some numbers today, over Kevin O'Connell's time here, the Vikings are fifth worst in the NFL in yards lost to sack. Fifth worst.

Now, last year we blamed Sam Darnold a lot. and we blamed Kirk a lot and now we're blaming Wence a lot and we're blaming JJ a lot and we're blaming Mullen's a lot I don't think did Dobbs get sacked a lot maybe he did I mean the offense lends itself

to being aggressive and there were some good quick game concepts early in the game but it feels like when they get behind a little bit when they get behind the chains a little bit it's like they're trying to get it all back with explosives and especially if they're not staying ahead of the chains

and getting in favorable situations to run play actions and things like that. And I thought that that was the cause of a lot of the sacks. And I also think that if when, assuming it's when, J.J. McCarthy comes back, got to stop doing that. You just got to stop doing that. You just cannot set up J.J. McCarthy with an empty set.

With this team, they got the guys beaten, Darissau over there. You got Watt over here against Justin's school. You got one of the greatest players in NFL history who will wear a gold jacket, Cam Hayward, and you're running four people down the field. You're going to get sacked. I just, that's what kind of drove me nuts about some of those plays. And now, look, if you're Kevin O'Connell, you might respond with, all right, well,

it was third and 11. What are our chances of getting a first down anyway if it's third and 11? and that's fair if you're sending everybody downfield and trying to convert that because it's not a high conversion play. But you also don't want your quarterback getting murdered. And that with Carson Wentz. Also, by the way, I have no idea on the first drive

how it wasn't a helmet to helmet hit. And there should have been a flag. And I thought that that threw off Carson Wentz a little bit. I mean, he got popped really hard to start the game. And maybe that was part of their strategy. But that was also on him. So it was, you know, it's this is, it's everybody. it's not having the right blocking the first sack justin jefferson is right there and they have

jordan mason chip and then he's supposed to go out in the flat well if you're cars and wince you've got to know it's two on one over on your right and you got to have the clock in your head you got to get rid of the ball jefferson is right over the middle so it was a little bit of everybody just as how it often works in football it was not just the play calling it was not just cars and went It was not just the offensive line, but it did lead to the Vikings being two and two. And these are the things that have to be much different as they go forward. If you're, look, sometimes on third and 11, you might want to just get six yards and see if your guy could break a tackle. Because trying to run a 20-yard dig route or a comeback or something every time, it becomes predictable.

And I think that other teams realize this. It's part of their scout. Hey, they're going to go for it and try to get all the yards back. on one of these timing throws, let's go after him. And Pittsburgh blitzes worked. They worked really well. The PFF stat was 19 times they blitzed and Wentz only completed seven passes on those 19 dropbacks and was sacked four times.

The blitzes were working. And yet it was still five out a lot of the time, you know, five guys going out into patterns. So there's your kind of little bit of the film there. I wasn't pressed with Jalen Redmond on the defensive side, but it wasn't great there either. Another real takeaway that I'm wondering about is Harrison Smith only played 17 snaps, and maybe he needs the buy week to get back to full strength. I don't know, but if he's only going to play 17 snaps, that's problematic. Oh, and I was going to bring this up.

Aaron Rogers, it's got that helmet that's too big. well, his big football brain, I think, really helped him in this game. That, yes, it was the Vikings coverage. Yes, they didn't get to him. But he and I would have loved to have seen the play clock because we know Rogers does this. But you know how they talk about holding the pen last? You'll have like, hey, we're trying to hold the pen last. We're trying to be the ones that make the last check or change.

He did not let them do that. He ran that clock all the way down to three, two, one, and made some changes in the last four or five seconds once he got the Vikings to kind of show him what they were doing. And one of the reasons that he could tell what they were doing is because Harrison Smith wasn't on the field a lot. That's part of it. But also, he's Aaron Rogers. And sometimes the other team does good stuff too. It's like some of the sacks, who we blaming, who needs to get fired? T.J. Watt's pretty good at his job.

And in this case, there were times where Aaron Rogers is just good at his job. And he identified what they were playing at the last minute after making his changes and took advantage of it. So I think that's one of the reasons why veteran quarterbacks have had some success against this defense is because a lot of it is based on deception. And they know their ins and outs. there was a great breakdown of Baker Mayfield doing this the other day where Mayfield made an adjustment with like three seconds left on the clock and got into the right call to beat the defense after he read it because it's kind of this little cat mouse game or you know this game of two cars racing toward the cliff

are you going to peel off are we going to peel off like who gets that last check and Aaron Rogers got a lot of them and he deserves credit for some of the stuff. that happened. But if quarterbacks get the ball out as fast as he did, yeah, they're going to have a lot of success. Normally, that doesn't happen. So there's your kind of some of the takeaways from the game. And I am interested in your guys' thoughts because the main idea here tonight and in about 20 minutes, you'll hear from Manny Hill and Brian Murphy, as always on Monday night, is did you take a deep breath after the game and look at the NFL and go, okay, you know, this isn't over or are you in the mode of it's one of those lost seasons

following a great season and we need to shred everybody, which is kind of the understandable feeling the day after a game like that. And with all the pomp and circumstance and everything else, like I don't blame anybody for that, but, you know, you had the whole rest of the day to watch football and think about where this team is and everything else. So I'm curious about how you came out of that experience of seeing the Packers look pretty human, seeing the Chargers look pretty human, seeing the Ravens just get run out of their building. And I didn't think Chicago was amazing.

They should have lost that game. Also, what the heck is going on with block kicks? This is crazy. The number of block kicks around the NFL is completely changing end of game scenarios. It's really fascinating. So that's one of those big trends. in the NFL, the old Daniel Carlson, former Viking, had a chance to win it and didn't do it.

So the bears kind of get one back. Like they gave one to the Vikings. They get one back against the Raiders. But look, they're two and two. The Bears and Vikings have the same record through four games, probably, and they outplayed the Vikings in three of the quarters. Probably not what you expected through these first couple of games. But I'm curious about how you feel now.

Because I saw yesterday, I mean, most of it was just, it was just like walking into a, a glass room with a baseball bat yesterday for Vikings fan and just i'm just going to smash everything that's kind of how it was and i think we could do better than that in our conversation a day later and pick apart some of these things um because i feel like so often the conversation ends up devolving into like two or three things that people just sort of yell out over and over and over again and i feel like that's kind of what we do on the show is try to really get to the root of what is happening and what are these solutions so how are we feeling the day after and then you know

we'll get into later on what to do a quarterback after this not whether j j mccarthy needs to play but when j j mccarthy is going to play i don't think it will be this week against the cleveland browns okay so where to begin uh mr mayor says some of these teams coming up are showing some of their weaknesses, but the Vikings have been practically 100% weakness. They're going to have to prove to me that they aren't trash. I mean, I think that that is a very fair assessment because when you look at the overall offensive production from this team,

it's very bad. And how many of those yards are garbage time, most of them? And how many of the yards against Cincinnati are garbage time? I mean, you're up so fast with the two defensive. touchdowns that even though the ball was moved extremely well by Carson Wentz and Jordan Mason, you're still playing up by with just free points starting out against the Bengals. So that was a lot easier environment to play in when your defense scores two points. And that's one of the things that I fundamentally think about all the time is how much an offense impacts a defense,

how much a defense impacts an offense. And the situation you're playing. playing in. And even with, you know, Rogers, I saw one of you pointed out that he only had 120 yards outside of the 80 yard catch, which is how everything in football works, by the way. Outside of that amazing play for a touchdown, he wasn't that great. You know, that's true. Outside of the four sacks, a pass rusher rushed 40 other times and didn't get to our quarterback. So what difference is it make? But they controlled the game in a lot of ways with that short pass. because they didn't force Rogers into a situation where you had to press on offense. They did not.

If you get up 10 points in a game against Rogers, look at what happened against the Jets last year. They get up. They get a defensive touchdown. They get ahead double digits. And then all of a sudden, Rogers has to sit back there and throw time and time again and look to get explosive plays. That impacted Wentz getting down early in the game by double digits. And then you feel like you've got to press and you've got to convert every third down. and you can't play a conservative type of run game and quick passing.

You feel like we got to score, we got to go, and it changes a lot of things. So I think the offense has impacted the defense this year. That doesn't excuse what happened against Kenneth Gainwell, who will now, I guess, go down a little bit in Viking lore as the Kenneth Gainwell game where they could not stop this man that has been a career backup. And Jalen Warren was not even playing who was supposed to be their good running back. And it's not a good offensive line either, but they certainly played like it yesterday in the run game. So that's worrisome there that if you can't stop Gainwell and that run game, are you going to be able to stop the other run games that are coming up that are that have these super talented running backs.

Derek Henry doesn't look great right now, but we've certainly seen him be great in the past. Saquan Barkley, O'Mary and Hampton, these guys, Jemir Gibbs are coming up real soon. In fact, that's kind of the schedule, but not in the right order. There's a lot of stuff there that has nothing to do with the offense, but the fact that the offense has not converted third down at all, that is given up way too many sacks, way too much pressure, and has only occasionally run the ball effectively and consistently with Jordan Mason and stuck to the run with Jordan Mason.

They did it against Cincinnati, but they needed to be up 30 points in order to do it. There were times where maybe they could have a little bit more, against Pittsburgh, and instead you've got Carson Wentz finishing the game with 50 passes. Like, that's just not what you want. You can't play that way if you're going to win in the current environment. So, yeah, I mean, I agree that they have to show that the offense can go score. This offense can't look like Josh Dobbs versus the Vegas Raiders every week and then expect this team to be legit.

Now, Addison coming back was an impact and he dropped a ball or two that needed to be caught. and Jefferson had a big day, but it feels like, you know, you have that. But then Hawkinson has a tough day and Naylor doesn't contribute at all. And they just have not had everybody click all at once very often. And some of that was timing for Carson Wentz. Some of it was the Steelers playing really good and creating pressure and it's harder to find guys. But they haven't gotten that whole super team of weapons working all at once. And I wouldn't even say against Cincinnati, everybody was.

They just didn't have to throw the ball really at all, except for a handful of completions and then you just win the game. But if you're going to struggle this much offensively, you're not a real contender. So when does that get together? Do you have to, is it, is it Philadelphia? I mean, I think as good as Cleveland is as a defense, you need to show it.

Like right now, it needs to start happening for anybody to really buy into you. because if you're going to have this many injuries up front, if you're not going to be able to run consistently, as has been the case for a really long time, and then you're going to have these sacks and these third down and longs and all that sort of, like, that's just not going to work. It's not going to work to create a consistent offense. So I think that that's a fair assessment is you're going to have to show that

because the signs have not been there yet so far. Adrian says, what are your thoughts on a Chris Cooper firing with the super chat? Thank you very much, Adrian. Oh, I want to be reminded yesterday on the post game, I was not looking at the comment section for obvious reasons. I wanted to focus on what I was saying. And I missed a super chat from someone who goes by the Duke of Per and I appreciate that. I wanted to say thank you for that. And they asked the question about the deadline and who they could start.

looking to trade to me it's just too early for that it's just too early to start talking about who you might sell at the trade deadline and if i had to guess if they're even near 500 they're not going to be a seller like they put too much into this team to try to sell we already saw that from daniel hunter a couple years ago even at 500 with a backup quarterback coming in they weren't selling i would be very surprised i mean if they lose to cleveland maybe we're having a different discussion but if they beat cleveland and they're three and two even if they lose the next two games then they'll be three and four, they're still in the mix, you've still got a chance. So I don't see that team, this team, as being one of those that just throws up his hands.

That's more of a Miami Dolphins type of thing. Like, oh, we're screwed. Our season is over with. The Vikings are going to fight to the end. They've always done that. 2020. It was what, was it 0.13, 0, 4, 1 in 4, I think they started, maybe even 1 in 5, and they still didn't do it. Under the Wilf's, they have not ever been a seller.

They usually fight to the end. Firing Chris Cooper, I don't know. Yeah, I've seen people say Ed Ingram's playing well for the Texans. I haven't watched the Texans or Ed Ingram. I see that he's got good PFF grades. I would also toss out there, you know, just like a couple games. Sometimes small sample sizes. I think he had some runs of good small sample size play.

There was a great Garrett Bradbury run that happened even last year, where Bradbury was top 10 through like half the season and still finished at the bottom. So I wouldn't declare that as, wow, you need to fire the O-line coach. Here's what I think. It's hard to be a Minnesota Vikings offensive linemen. That's what I think is there are offensive lines strategies. San Francisco has deployed this for many years. When I watched them recently, I don't see some of the same stuff.

And maybe they've just had to change and adapt for. from, you know, running the wide zone all the time and bootlegs all the time. And they still do it. And Green Bay, for example, last night, there's a good example. A lot of play actions, a lot of bootlegs for Jordan Love. Their offensive lines getting pretty killed and he's getting hit a lot. He's having to scramble. But they're helping a little bit by getting him away from the rush and changing the launching point.

Some of the stuff that Kevin Stefansky used to do for Kirk Cousins, they're doing that. when you're asking your offensive linemen to be in third and long and pass protect for 50 snaps, it's hard. And they've done that a lot during KOC's time here, where you're asking Garrett Bradbury to face off with Kenny Clark, 40 dropbacks. That's just not easy to do. You're not staying ahead of the sticks there.

In 2019, they had what, Josh Klein. Remmers was probably gone. I forget who was playing right guard in 19. But it wasn't an all-star group. And yet, they had a lot of running success that year. They did a lot of play action stuff. Kirk didn't get sacked that often. There are ways around it that they don't deploy.

And this has always been my thought about somebody like Jared Gough. Sean McVeigh moved on from Jared Gough because he couldn't do everything he wanted to do with Gough in there. But he probably could had they pest protected for Gough. because when they did, he was great. And when Detroit does, golf is great. And when they don't, he's not. Matthew Stafford is more of a guy who it doesn't matter how many times he gets hit. He's still going to just be Matthew Stafford.

We know that about him. That's even been statistically proven, by the way, that he's like the best quarterback in the league after getting hit. So that's, yeah, they could do that. But when they won the Super Bowl in 2021, they had the top ranked PFF pass blocking grade. And it was what, big Andrew Whitworth at left tackle? that's why Derisaw is so important, as was pointed out to me, a number of times. But Derisaw is very important, and he didn't have a great game yesterday, and I think he's still

working back to it. But that's why that's a big deal. It's why this injury to Brian O'Neill, even if it's short term, is a big deal. Because there's a lot of straight dropback, and there's a lot of deep developing routes, and you're just asking your line to do a lot. because what opposing teams are doing, and you saw this a ton for Pittsburgh. They're sending dudes from all over.

You saw Patrick Queen. He's lining up right over. He's mugging on the Blitz that Sacks Carson Wentz on the opening drive. They kind of hang around for a half a tick and then go. And that's something you're seeing all the time. There's a thing called the coffee house blitz where a guy will kind of turn and then he'll go like he's dropping back in coverage. and then the quarterback loses eyes on him, thinking that he's back in coverage.

There's stuff that these teams are doing. They mugged up, which means where you're lining up the linebackers over the guards, kind of in the A gaps. Well, you saw it from Zimmer for that entire time. They did that all the time. They were doing that on first down.

So it's, I think it's a big challenge there. Everyone who I've ever asked about Chris Cooper really likes it and likes the way that he's coached these guys and I don't think anybody can coach a group where you're supposed to have a super team of offensive linemen and they never play together. There's nobody who can do that. So I think it's been a lot more personnel. And then the challenges that KOC's offense creates, that's why they spent so much on it. That's why they got

Donovan Jackson. That's why they paid Christian Darisaw. That's why they've extended Brian O'Neill. That's why they went and got Will Fries. But if they're not out there, then that's with with Ryan Kelly, then I think that's where KOC has to make a big change when that happens. And I didn't feel like he did that yesterday. So I don't think fire. And that's what I mean about like going into the glass house and just smashing everything, which is what I feel like a lot of you have kind of done. We don't have to just fire everybody. Like they're two and two. They're not 0.4. If this team was 0.4, I would probably, whoever you put in the chat box to fire, I'd be like, yes. But there's.

They're not, so we don't have to quite go that far yet. But I think that there is things that have transpired in these first few games that I've thought, KOC either needs to, I mean, he's actually done some of the short game, the last two games and then kind of got away from it. He either needs to adapt that a little bit in certain situations. I still think being aggressive is smart. You don't get an 80-yard Jordan Addison touchdown by sending him on a button hook for four yards. Okay, so they get the benefit of this a lot.

The same with Jefferson. He had 22-yard gain, 29-yard gain. Last week, I think it was a 36-yarder. Like, these things happened by being aggressive, these big plays. That philosophy is there. But when you lose offensive linemen, I do think you need to look elsewhere at times on the play sheet. But what ends up happening is it's, you know, fire the. GM, fire the coach, fire the, we could talk about this in better ways than just saying

everyone should be fired. Lenny says season could quickly spiral downward with the schedule we have. So two and two through the easiest part of our schedule isn't good. Well, that's kind of my point about not really knowing what you're going to be looking at when you actually get to these teams. So Philadelphia is obviously very strong. The chargers, it does change the math on the chargers with Joe Altout. guy is unbelievable and he's not playing. I don't know. That sounds like a serious injury if he'll

be back by the time they face the Vikings and they got murdered by the Giants D-line that's very similar to the Vikings. So I think that the schedule looks not quite as daunting after yesterday with the way that some of the things have played out. KFC says 49ers and the Rams run the same offense and they protect better than the Vikings. I don't think the 49ers run the same offense. I don't think this is the 49ers offense. I think that there's some old school Shanahan concepts that KOC will use. I do not think it's the same. The Rams, I think it's about their quarterback.

They have a borderline Hall of Fame quarterback who has no problem getting hit and then having an epidural before the game. He's a psycho. I don't know. He's great. And he's like 35. I mean, that's, do we expect J.J. McCarthy to do that? also last year's quarterback Sam Darnold was now I know you're asking about the

protection but like Sam Darnold stood in there and took the hits and made the throws and like that's kind of what it requires uh but why did they block better I mean the Rams personnel was better and they were healthy if this team's offensive line is healthy they're good I have no doubt about that um but I think there's big differences when you have a quarterback in Stafford who's going to set the protection and by the way when Stafford against the Eagles When their offensive line was banged up and had problems, what happened? The Eagles got to him in the biggest moment. They lost the game.

Like, this happens to everybody. Freddie, why is Brian O'Neill on the field goal team? He has played 490 snaps on the field goal team in his career. 490. This is the first time he got hurt. You need offensive linemen to get out there and block. They don't have endless numbers of offensive linemen who could just come off the 490 snaps. Sometimes bleep happens in football.

But they need linemen to block for those field goals. I mentioned that guys are getting hurt left and right. But he's always been on the field goal team. You've just never noticed. So blind shadow vortex is we've given up 18 sacks in four games, the equivalent to 76 and a half through 17 games. That's what I mean, man. If this continues to happen,

then it doesn't matter what the upcoming schedule is. That's for sure. Adrian Cooper's been here for four years, zero improvement. Well, first of all, I don't necessarily agree with that because the first half of last year where they had a fully healthy line, they were really good. They were averaging over five yards of carry. Darnal was getting plenty of time to throw. They lost Christian Darrasaw. They played the first two games without Darrasaw this year. They played the third game. Half of Darrisaw. The fourth game, he's asked to go play 75 snaps of offense. And then you lose Ryan Kelly. I mean, there are explanations for this stuff. I don't think just firing people is. really the way to talk about that. There hasn't been an update on Ryan Kelly. I don't know, you know how it's going to go.

I don't care if he's been, yeah, I know, I know, I know. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. This is a good time to bring in Mani and Murph because we get to silly season here. Every, every team in the league, I promise you, has starting offensive linemen playing on field goals because there's just not enough of them to not play starting offensive linemen. Uh, you have, you can't just throw out every terrible player that you have, uh, and expect that that's going to, you know, go well for you. So, you know, I can look up, I can look up other

examples if we need that. Um, it sounds like you kind of do need that to hear that other offensive linemen play. It's football. Sometimes people get hurt. Like, I don't know. Penae Sewell. Is he any good. Penes Sewell has played 25 snaps on field goal this year. Every team has to use their linemen on field goal because you need the kick not to get blocked. Anyway, this is, this is why, but this is why we go through this stuff. So we can all learn together next time we can look at who's out on the field and see that. All right. So give me a second here as we're going to get to our round team.

with Brian Murphy and Manny Hill, and they will shed some light on their feelings about how much concern there should be.