Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Was the Vikings' victory over the Patriots the biggest win of the year?

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about the Vikings' huge victory on Thanksgiving Night over the New England Patriots. Why Kevin O'Connell's adjustments were very impressive and Justin Jefferson put on a show. What does 9-2 mean to their situation with the playoffs and the overall confidence of the team? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome into the Minnesota Vikings came away with a bit of a wild but a very impressive victory against the New England Patriots on Thanksgiving night Matthew Collar with you from inside U.S. Bank Stadium Paul Hodowanek here with me as well and Paul I would say a few things to start us off beginning with maybe the Vikings most impressive win I mean it's hard to top the Buffalo win as far as impressive because of the way they came back in that game. But this one, there was nothing fluky really about this. They were helped out by a penalty with roughing the punter. But aside from that, they let offense drive the success of this game. Kevin O'Connell very, very impressively bounced back from getting romped by the Dallas Cowboys to

putting together a tremendous game plan that right from the outset of this game, they go down, they score seven quick points. And it seemed like the offense was clicking all the way through. They were able to get the ball to Justin Jefferson on numerous times who it was not quite Randy Moss on Thanksgiving, but this was a very, very memorable performance by Justin Jefferson on numerous times who it was not quite Randy Moss on Thanksgiving, but this was a very, very memorable performance by Justin Jefferson who drove this victory. They did not let Bill Belichick take him out of this game. They got other people involved. TJ Hawkinson, Adam Thielen catches a key touchdown, but the biggest takeaway for me is against a elite defense in the new England Patriots that the Vikings offense was able to rise to the challenge and make adjustments in just a couple of days. I mean, that was the

challenge that we essentially presented to the Minnesota Vikings this week was, can you guys adapt? Can you find answers? Because you know that this team is going to do a lot of the same things that the Dallas Cowboys did against you. And we'll get into the defense, the special teams, which really shine tonight for the Vikings. The defense had some troubles stopping Mac Jones through a lot of this evening, and we'll break that down as well. But I think, Paul, the biggest takeaway is the bounce back after a 40-3 loss and the bounce back done the way that it was.

Changes in the scheme, getting the ball out quickly, finding ways to get it to Jefferson, not letting the fact that you had a backup left tackle versus the NFL's leader in sacks make a very big difference in this game. And yeah, there was a play here or there. There was a sack in the red zone. There was a holding in the red zone. But it was not throughout the entire game that it was a problem like it was against Dallas or even going back a couple of weeks like it was against Washington. And if this

is the version of the Minnesota Vikings that we're going to see down the stretch and when they face good defenses that are able to game plan against them, they can beat, would you say, almost anybody? I mean, New England is a pretty formidable opponent, and they played offense like a team that has a great offense, even though they hadn't so far this year. But they certainly played like it for most of tonight. But I think that that is the number one theme of the evening, was Justin Jefferson, unstoppable, Kevin O'Connell adapting, and there's a reason why these players have been buying into

Kevin O'Connell really from day one. Yeah. I don't know if I can call it the most impressive victory of the Viking season. I have a lot of things to say, not many of them good about the Vikings defensive performance in this. We'll get to that at some point, but if you're just talking about like kind of bouncing back mentally from a absolute drubbing to the Cowboys. This was certainly that. They responded emotionally just four days off rest. You would have thought, like, you didn't expect a Bill Belichick team to look as sloppy as they did on Thursday night.

You would have expected a team like the Vikings off the performance from last week with a first-year head coach. You'd expect them to look like that. They did not. They looked prepared in terms of that. No they're not very little penalties not a ton of big mistakes other than that one cousin's uh kind of overthrow there that caught them uh so yeah in that sense impressive just how they're able to bounce back after what really could have been kind of a season defining loss against the cowboys and how that could have spiraled your team.

You have a negative point differential and you're eight and two, like history wasn't on your side at that point. So them bouncing back, I think is important. The offensive line allowing only one sack after seven sacks of Kirk Cousins the week before that's obviously big, especially with Christian Darasaw back. Cousins is time to throw last week was 3.06 seconds. Today it was 2.86 seconds. So clearly, and you could see it early, they were trying to get the ball out on some wide

receiver screens, on some quick plays to get the ball out of Cousins' hand, stop the pass rush. They clearly tried to run the ball to stop that. They were not effective whatsoever, 2.1 yards per carry, but still manage 33 points 26 of that is the offense seven of that is kenny wong woo which came at a big time kind of felt like one of those the kind of the dalvin cook moment uh with the bills game where it felt like things could have gotten out of hand and then you get that one big play so credit kenny wong woo for that so yes impressive in the fact that they bounce back the way they did i still think there are some tough things happening on the defensive side of the ball. They still cannot run the ball,

even though they were clearly committed to doing so tonight, whether it worked or not. So there are still some small red flags, but when you consider where this team was Sunday night and where they are now, undoubtedly they're in a better position. You feel better about them. And it doesn't feel like they're kind of at the start of a downward trajectory. It feels like they've leveled the ship for now, and now can they kind of climb back up? That'll be the question the next couple of weeks. Yeah. I mean, we'll definitely get into everything that happened on the defensive side, but I think that when you talk about the things that will matter the most. I don't believe that any of us ever

thought that the Vikings defense was going to just dominate or that it was going to take the ball away all the time. I mean, the fact that they didn't take the ball away today, this is kind of what your defense looks like. If you're not getting turnovers is that almost on a week to week basis, they've given up a lot of yardage and they've had to make stops in the red zone, which they did get a couple of key stops in the red zone today. There was a huge deal. And usually they have to get a turnover or a big sack, which they got that sack from Daniel Hunter on a third down. I think it was Daniel Hunter on a third down late in the game with Mac Jones trying to drive. So that's always who they're going to have to be. But against Dallas, I think what we

learned in that game was if your offense gets stifled, if you go three and out too many times, that this defense will not be able to hold up for an entire game against a good team. And the Patriots do not have a good offense, which I think is what was maybe most disturbing. Now you go back a few weeks and it's Josh Allen putting up 460 yards or something. And you kind of get away with that because of interceptions. And then Dak Prescott goes off against you. Then Mac Jones, who's having a really flat out horrendous season, and he's finding open receivers all over the place.

And there's a fourth cornerback in there. So those are the issues that they're going to have on defense. And even if they get Tomlinson back, even if they get Cam Dantzler back, Zedaria Smith seems pretty banged up. My point is, I think we know that about this football team is we are well aware that on a week to week basis, there's a good chance the other team's quarterback has his best day of the year, that he's going to complete passes that underneath, especially there's going to be guys that are running open throughout the game. And in this game, they gave up some deep passes, which is kind of their goal in general, not to. And even I got frustrated at one point and tweeted out, like at some point you have to blitz the quarterback, don't you? Because everybody

knows exactly what you're going to do, but that is the landscape you're working with. Like there's no changing that about the defense. I don't think that if Ed Donatel dials up a blitz or two, that it's really going to change the fundamental fact that they have two guys that they rely on for their full pass rush. They have a really weak nickel cornerback. They have injuries at corner otherwise, which maybe will help a little when they come back. But it's really been who they are as a defense is that they have weaknesses.

You have to overcome that as an offense. Like that was the whole deal when they hired Kevin O'Connell. It was, you are getting a guy who can make adjustments, who can adapt, who can fit to Kirk, who can make Kirk a more confident guy who can not let it snowball. Like what happened last week against the Dallas Cowboys. Now look, if the

Vikings defense played the same against Dallas, but this version of the offense showed up, we would have been talking about a great game last week, but the offense punted, I don't know, seven or eight straight times. That was not the case here. And it seemed like every punch in the mouth that they took in this game for Mac Jones, where every time, I mean, the end of the half is a good example where they go down and score, they get the ball back, they go score again. And you mentioned the Kenny Wong Wu kick return cannot be overlooked. It was a huge play in this game. And funny that in the press box, we were talking about they're kicking it to Wong Wu. I don't know about this. Like we haven't seen a big return from him this year, but, and then boom, there it happens. But when they had opportunities and when the Patriots opened the door, which they

did make some uncharacteristic mistakes for what you expect from a Belichick team. But when they opened the door, when they made the big mistake in hitting Ryan, right after he punted it away, and even being aggressive on Ryan, right. And that play was very strange, I thought, considering how their offense was moving the ball. They didn't have to try to block a punt. So there seemed to be a little bit of panic there from Bill Belichick and from their special teams unit. But what did the Vikings do?

They got a 37-yard pass or 36-yard pass to Justin Jefferson, and they didn't let Bill Belichick slow down Jefferson. And every week we think, like, can he do anything more to assert himself as the best wide receiver in the world and already one of the best receivers in history through three seasons? This guy has more receiving yards in three years than anyone else, and the season is not over. I mean, that's how absurd Justin Jefferson is. He made a catch tonight that was maybe his best of the game

and it got called back by a holding on an incredible diving catch in front of a defender. There is no stopping him except for if Cousins is getting sacked. So I thought that the way they ran the ball was not effective as far as yardage goes, but at least they made the Patriots think about it. They got the ball out of Cousins hands fast enough. They pushed the ball down the field to Justin Jefferson. I think what we saw tonight was if you're asking the question, how can you win in the playoffs? How could you actually beat good teams like Dallas, like Philadelphia,

when you ultimately get another shot at them? It's this way because Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott and Jimmy Garoppolo and the other quarterbacks in the NFC, I mean, mostly, are probably going to score points. Geno Smith's having a great year. In the playoffs, you're going to face teams that can score. Can you match them? And tonight you said, even against one of the best defenses in the league,

yes, you can match them. Yeah, I mean, Patriots defense was number one entering today in epa per play allowed on defense so literally could you could say this is the best defense in the nfl that the vikings just played against and they played against matthew judon who led the league in sacks he really didn't have much of an effect on this game for the most part had a couple nice pressures of cousins but he's only on the ground one time cousins evaded pressure pretty well. Several times. He,

he let the pressure. It looked like it get to him on that one interception. It looked like he couldn't really step into that throw. He stayed on his back foot, sailed that, but he had plenty of time in the pocket. So that's not fully on the offensive line. Maybe not even fully on cousins,

a little bit of a mixture there, but largely held that defensive line down when you have Blake Brando when you still have Ed Ingram playing right guard and struggling at right guard so for the most part the offensive line played well Thielen had was much more active today in this game TJ Hawkinson continues to come down with several big third down catches and continues to get integrated into this offense and then I don't know what more we can really say about Justin Jefferson other than he is this entire offense he's what makes it go and you talked about it I mean Belichick the old phrases he makes teams play left-handed that would have been playing

without Jefferson and the Vikings Vikings sure played with Jefferson and it didn't really look like I mean obviously he was double covered in certain situations, but it didn't even matter. So the fact that one of the best schemers in the NFL ever can't take away your best wide receiver, that's a pretty dang good spot to be at, especially when you enter the playoffs and feeling like no matter what defense we go up against, if it's a really, really good 49ers defense like the 49ers are, or a second crack at the Cowboys, maybe with a little bit more time and kind of a chance to right some of those wrongs. You feel like Justin Jefferson can't really be taken out of the game. That's obviously an immense, an immense positive. And I do agree with you. We've talked about at length this year about the defense and a lot of the struggles just stemming from the fact that they don't have the bodies to do what an elite defense would do.

And I agree with you. And they're missing Dalvin Tomlinson. So that sure hurts your running game and you're missing Cam Dantzler and Caleb Evans and Andrew Booth in the secondary. That's sure not going to help your secondary and how things are going. I think where my struggles lie on defense is regardless of if they're playing well or opponent or really a lot of these factors, the Vikings defense is basically playing the same way, like over and over and over again. They're not really adjusting for personnel. So I get the fact that they're already kind of tied with one hand behind their back on defense. Like I acknowledge that there's only so much you can do. And you saw today, if they're not getting a pass rush what that looks like and probably this game more than any felt like i really got a sense for how important zadarius

smith has been to this team because you're seeing when he isn't a game wrecker which you just can't expect him to be every single game these are maybe the results you're going to see but the the not willingness to blitz i think again is just more of a matchup thing to me than holistically Mac Jones by PFF grade 38th out of 39 quarterbacks when pressured when blitzed he's 36th of 39th quarterbacks so when he's pressured when he's blitzed he does not perform well and you saw when they finally brought five uh rushers on the two third downs where they kind of gotten way up on the line. They sacked him or created pressure on both those looks.

So it's not like when they blitzed, they were ineffective. The few times they blitzed, they were effective. And so, yes, he dialed Donatello dialed it up at the right time. It just feels like if you're getting kind of beat over the head over and over again. And the one semblance of your defense is Ben don't break, but you were breaking for some big plays like that feels like, okay, we're not even containing that. Let's try something. So I think it's less the performance and it's more just the not willingness to adapt to

the team you're playing. If you're going to blitz any quarterback, the data shows blitz Matt Jones. And so I guess maybe coming off a short week, you don't have all that dialed in. Like there are excuses, sure. And there are reasons that you can explain why they didn't do it. It just felt like when they're continuing

to score over and over again, just try something new. And it doesn't feel like the defense has done that. So I think that's where my frustration lies with the defense. But if we're talking offensively, Cousins had one of his best games, almost 300 yards, three touchdowns.

So there are certainly sustainable aspects to this game. There are just some of those small things on defense that I could have gotten much more excited about the win if they were doing those things. And I think in the playoffs, even though some offenses are just going to score, even if you have a good defense, you've still got to make a stop at some point. And if Matt Jones is beating you, the quarterback that had only four touchdowns to seven interceptions and didn't ever really look like he was close to turning the ball over, like if he's dicing you up, that's not a good omen for the

playoffs. And so that's, that's where my hesitancy comes in, but I won't take away the fact that they won under tight circumstances after a rough game. Like they deserve all the flowers for that. There's just, I just wouldn't call this a dominant win or the most impressive win because they still seemed so deficient on one side of the ball. Yeah, I think that if they had played defensively even halfway what we expected in this game

with the way that New England's offense was struggling so much, they've been one of the worst offenses in the league and they put up three offensive points against the New York Jets just last week. And that's closer to who they are I mean Mac Jones came in with more interceptions than touchdowns which in the year 2022 is literally hard to do in the NFL I mean with so few people throwing interceptions and you know the totals for quarterbacks being what they are it's hard to be that bad and yet that's where Mac Jones was coming into this game.

And yet he looked like the most confident quarterback in the league until the very end of the game when the Patriots sort of botched it 50 ways sideways, including for some reason trying to return a ball on a punt that went to the two-yard line. If it goes out of the back of the end zone, dude, you get it at the 25. Like, where did you think you were going with that? Time was of the essence. Like, a few seconds matters at that point there there were definitely a few times in this game where i was very surprised by the patriots uh two face masks and and so forth that i mean what why but hey look tom brady isn't here to paint over every single one of your deficiencies i get what you're saying about the defensive side. And I totally agree with, look, you have to change up something like you can't

continue to just do the same thing over and over again and allow opposing quarterbacks to put up the type of numbers that the last three weeks that they have. And I think we're also seeing how important Delvin Tomlinson was to the operation, because for the most part, until there was an injury in the backfield, the Patriots really ran the ball very successfully and if you run the ball you can run play action I mean it's the same conversation we have all the time and Mac Jones was able to stand back there with no pressure whatsoever I would also add that Zedarius Smith even walking off the field looked very ginger if you need to rest him for a week against the Jets with the loss by the Detroit Lions today, you are so far cruising ahead of every other team.

Get Z'Darrius Smith right. I mean, if it takes two or three weeks to get his knee right, you can win against Mike White. Is that his name? Who's going to start for the New York Jets? Now, I guess I shouldn't make fun because Mac Jones did what he did tonight, but that might be a factor because I think we've seen how important he is. He needs to get seven, eight, nine pressures for this team to get pressure on the quarterback. It does seem to me like Ed Donatell, who has been defensive about his system throughout the year, not defensive and is in stopping the other team, but as in his press conferences,

it hasn't seemed like he feels like he needs to make any adjustments. So I don't think we're seeing anything different, but that version of Kirk Cousins, and here's where it was really, really outstanding for the Vikings tonight with Kirk Cousins. He throws that interception. And what do you think everybody on Twitter said? Oh, here's primetime Kirk throwing the ball away. Just a little side note, by the way, I studied this maybe two years ago. I looked back at every primetime game he ever played, and it was pretty much the exact same version of Kirk Cousins. The difference was that they were playing winning teams and really good teams.

And that's why his win loss record was what it was. But every other number from PFF grade to the box score stats to ESPN's QBR, he was really the same quarterback. And I think what you saw here tonight was this is when Kirk Cousins is at his best playing confidently and bouncing back from an interception. That's when, you know, he's kind of locked in. And for whatever reason, I think it was the fact that he wasn't getting pressured and the fact that they had a game plan that he may have been confident in

to get the ball out quickly and knew he wasn't going to take a ton of hits tonight I mean they came right out and what like a quick pass to Johnny Munt is like yes establish the Munt but I mean they were getting the ball out quickly and not trying to just stick with the same thing. And I think throughout this season on multiple occasions, we have seen Kevin there was one interpretation that was like oh is he kind of like calling out kevin o'connell but i think he was actually telling us what kevin o'connell had told the team which you know maybe he doesn't want uh his wide receiver telling everybody what their plan is for the next week but to come out and actually execute that and for Cousins to bounce back, it is a different version of Cousins as far as his personal confidence. I think we've seen that all year and one really, really bad loss doesn't entirely change that. And if we're asking what is the difference between this year and other seasons with Kirk Cousins, I mean, that's the thing that I see that's different.

That being at every game and visually you can see it. And the conversations with Kevin O'Connell throughout a game, even Justin Jefferson talked in the locker room tonight after the game. And he said, it's really important that throughout a game on the sideline, I can go to Kevin O'Connell and he can come over to me and he can say, Hey, on this next drive, look for this. I want you to look for this look and make this play, and we're going to do this to have that communication with O'Connell. I mean, we kind of like rolled our eyes a little bit at the whole, we're going to collaborate, we're going to be communicative, but it has mattered to the players.

In a game like tonight, I think we really, really saw that, but we also saw, and this goes for offense and defense. It's the players. If you have Justin Jefferson and they don't, you win and they don't. I mean, Jacoby Myers got hurt right away. I thought that was a bit of a factor in some of their situations that they were without him, although they didn't struggle much to throw the ball. But when you have Justin Jefferson, you are never out of a game. You can outscore anybody in the NFL. You can beat the number one defense. And a major part of it has to be Cousins pushing it downfield to Cousins,

regardless if he wants to or not. Just do it. And Jefferson has said repeatedly throughout this season, and he said it again tonight, that the receivers continue to go to Cousins and to encourage him and say, keep giving us chances. And they were able to do that tonight. I also didn't think Paul, and this is maybe another factor of, Hey, what does this mean for the bigger picture? I did not think it was the one man show. I mean, it was a show for sure for Justin Jefferson. And

this one goes down, you know, if you were at this game tonight, you're going to talk about that for a long time with Justin Jefferson, but feeling catching a touchdown. You mentioned TJ Hawkinson getting a couple of big plays. I thought that was important. Hawkinson had a really rough game against the Dallas Cowboys, but again, we see him in the third time in four games gets a third down catch or gets a goal line catch or something that was the reason that they brought TJ Hawkinson here. And it's that kind of all around performance. And again, I would still give them credit for running the ball the way they did, even though they were not good at it, because sometimes you just have to keep pounding away at a team to give yourself one opportunity to set up a play action or something like that. I mean, I think that that is something they have to do that. They can't just say,

well, the other team slowed us down a little bit in the run because usually Delvin cook does break one. He didn't tonight, but usually he does. But I think this was maybe the first time all season where you could go through the roster and say, you know what? The offensive line came up pretty big today for the most part. And Delvin Cook was really involved. And they worked it to multiple different receivers, except for K.J. Osborne still is a mystery. But an all-around offensive performance,

not just a, oh, hey, these two or three drives, and then they had to come back in the fourth quarter. It was really throughout the entire game, which has been the biggest issue of this season. Folks, maybe you've noticed people in your office with what looks like an open tall boy at their desk in the morning at work. Well, it's not a beer. It's more likely it's a can of liquid death,

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and maybe I'll have to start pounding them in front of my friends who know I'm not a drinker just to see their reaction. So go get Liquid Death at your local Target, Whole Foods Market, or Hy-Vee, or find a Liquid Death retailer near you with their store locator tool at liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. Yeah, I forget what drive it was on, but it was a third and nine and Hawkinson just made a nice, like it was a post route. It looked like, uh, or an out route. And he just caught like right up against a defender cousins kind of fired one in there

and Hawkinson grabbed it, kept the sticks moving. It's just those types of plays that you weren't going to get from an Irv Smith probably. And then Adam Thielen gets 10 targets to just Jefferson's 11 and he catches nine of them, I believe. So a nice feeling game as well. He has said, I believe he said this week, it's the healthiest he's felt in a while. And so you're hoping that can continue. Although he did walk off with the sideline early in this game.

I think it looked like with a slight little nagging leg injury. So you're never quite healthy, fully healthy at this time of the year. But if he can be more of a difference maker and he was wide open in the end zone on his play uh that cousins found him on so those are the important parts and i agree with you to an extent on the rushing attempts it was just it's just another game of them not doing it very well and so i i would love to get a full breakdown on how important it is to run the ball to set up the play action, because that's the whole thing is you run the ball to set up the play action.

But if they're not running it effectively, how much does it help? And can you just run the play action with the threat of Dalvin running without really having to run him this many times? They on early downs, they had 51 early down plays. 27 were passed. 24 were rushed. So they were about 50 50 split but on those plays on rushing they were negative 0.32 epa rushing and positive 0.39 passing and they had a 21 success rate running 67 pass rate passing so i understand the need to run the ball but this is

now several weeks of really really struggling and so i I know O'Connell talked about a post game and it's kind of a general football thought. You need to run the ball to set these things up. It just strikes me that if it's not going effectively, can you supplement those runs with those quick passing games that you're doing right off the bat? Are you going to just do, can you do screens to get these four or five yards if you're trying to get in second and manageable i think there's ways to do that in the past when it's proven that this offensive line banged up isn't really helping the running game so i would like to see that running game get going a little bit more but i do believe this was

more than just the jefferson show just based on theelin and hokinson's performance alone. And if you do have three legit options out there that defenses have to account for, that makes it much, much harder to take Justin Jefferson completely out of a game to the extent that you can even do that. But it becomes much harder to double him because you know there's going to be an opening somewhere else. And Jalen Rager makes a play at one point, and KJ Osborne makes a play wrestling a ball from a defender at one point. Like you're getting these small,

you're getting small help from kind of your really tertiary pieces. And then the, you know, the primary secondary guys stepped up today. And that's how you get an offense to score 33 points and really look like it was firing other than that one drive where Cousins obviously turns the ball over. So yeah, I think an encouraging point for the offense and encouraging in the fact that they made those quick game adjustments on four days. I mean, they lose Sunday. They're just walking through on Monday. They get a practice on Tuesday. They're not really doing much on Wednesday. Like that's not a lot of time to do and kind of change your philosophy.

The Vikings hadn't like, weren't a really massive quick game team this whole year. That wasn't like their bread and butter. And they clearly had more emphasis on it today. So them being able to do that on a short week, it being effective, them not having a ton of penalties with it or mistakes with it. Those are all big pluses when you consider where they were just, you know, four days ago and where they got to now. Yeah. I think with the running point, what we've seen over Kirk Cousins' career is maybe there might be arguments or studies or something that show that you don't necessarily need to be establishing the run for play action.

But I also think that every broad statement that stats make doesn't apply to every situation. And I think that what we've seen throughout Kirk Cousins career is when Delvin cook is humming, which he wasn't really tonight, but they kept making them think about it. And the other thing is too, that if you show a look enough times, and I know that there wasn't like some massive play action touchdown tonight, but there were a few really effective play action plays. I'll look at the numbers tomorrow, but it felt that way. It felt like,

Oh, they can run play action against this team and have some space to throw to open wide receivers. You show them something, a look, you get CJ ham back there, for example, and then you hit them with a run,

hit them with a run and they start to recognize a look and then you hit them with that play action and with delvin too he draws a lot of attention everybody looks at the data and sees five yards of carry from this guy they see an 80 yard touchdown run and i don't think it's been the same level of play to play effectiveness success rate is a stat that you like to cite a lot and it hasn't been a consistent success rate for the Vikings but five yards of carry is pretty scary to a defensive team and it's also every time you run is another down you're not getting sacked because of the pressure and I think it does have an impact in how you can pressure Kirk Cousins specifically because so much

of it is up the middle. I think offensive linemen really enjoy the run blocking. This is a kind of the strength of this team in their offensive line is run blocking. So it gave them opportunities to have a break from that, from pass blocking over and over and over and over again with a left tackle who is playing his what second or third career game against, in part, I thought that they were going to line up Judon over him more often, but in part, the NFL's leader in sacks. So that is going to be a thing with Derrissaw out that they really have to do.

And there's also just that home run play that throughout the season, most of the time, they have needed in order to win a home run play. And they got it from Delvin and Buffalo. They didn't get it against Dallas. They got it from Kenny Wong Wu today. They got a few of them from Justin Jefferson, but Delvin cook is certainly capable of that. So I lean toward them needing to be a balanced offense, needing to run more that they have leaned very heavily throughout the season into early down passing game, which the more you do it, the more it's a tendency, the more it's an opportunity for the opposing team to prepare for it because they all know all of your tendencies. So if you even kind of break that

with a little more running, I'm okay with it. Even if for a game, it isn't successful. If you run for two yards to carry every game, well, of course it's going to be miserable, but normally there's a big one that breaks in there. But I mean, that's not really the headline, but to me, it's just, you needed to come back and not panic and not also not do the same thing you just did. So if you didn't do either one of those things, you had a chance to have a really good offensive performance tonight. And I think that they pulled that off.

It is also worth mentioning that I was pretty surprised by some of the things that the new England Patriots did this evening. I mean, even on defense, I thought that they weren't all that aggressive. They threw the occasional blitz, but it was a lot of, you know,

maybe not as confusing looks as bill Belichick is really known for. And, you know, maybe that had to do with the short week, but I really known for. And, you know, maybe that had to do with the short week, but I don't know. I, or maybe it just was a game plan where they thought, Hey, Dallas just rushed for and got after this team. So we're going to do the same thing. But when they were able to pick up some of those blitzes and had a good plan for them on the short game, there just didn't really seem to be an answer or it didn't seem to be quick pressure.

So that opened up the door for the Vikings. And then, you know, the special team stuff, I think the Vikings took advantage of it. And this is where, again, when we're talking about where they have to win, they have to get those big special teams plays. They have to get a great punt from Ryan, right at the end of the game, they have to get that kick return for touchdown because they have this glaring weakness called a defense that is going to continue to be a problem. And I don't know that there's any adjustment they're going to make, but they can, Paul, I think get better from this or after this with Delvin Tomlinson coming back at some point, Cam Dantzler is going to come off of injured reserve and a Caleb Evans will return. I don't know what the deal with Andrew Booth jr.

Is, but it seems like he's not going to be an impact player on this team. They did attack the heck out of Duke Shelley. I give him credit for making one play that mattered. And, and actually again, the Patriots, the weird decisions, they didn't go for a fourth and one that, you know, maybe they would have been able to fall forward. They didn't take another shot at the end zone at the end of the half and just said, oh, one fade pass is enough. That's fine. That was really surprising to me as well.

But Duke Shelley made the play that he needed to make. But if this is the version of the defense that you're going to see health-wise, it is going to be a problem. But it shouldn't be. I mean, who knows the rest of the season. But they will get some of these guys back as they go forward and have maybe a little better chance to hang on. Yeah. And as, as we've had with a lot of the Vikings games this year, there are points you

can point to have, wow, like the other team really screwed up to help them. And that obviously happened with the penalty on the punter. It happened with just allowing a kick return. Obviously that's a lot on Wongu, but it's, it's also pretty much every kick return has a kick return touchdown has some deficiencies from the other side that lets you get there. Uh, they had some numerous face mass penalties. They had the one unnecessary, like roughness penalty or the targeting penalty. I don't know what they particularly called that just unnecessary by them. There was a play at the end of the first half

where Hunter Henry should have just run out of bounds. He doesn't, they have to call a timeout. Then at the end of the game, at the end of the half, when they want to keep throwing it into the end zone, magically they don't have a timeout. They have to go down and spike it and waste a ton of time. So they did that there. They did that on the last drive, not getting out of bounds.

So there were certainly a lot of sloppy plays by the Patriots, but it's notable that the Vikings on a short week had none of that. Like the Patriots performance today, I don't think is an outlier in terms of how teams normally look on a Thursday after playing on Sunday. Like I think that's generally a lot of the times how these Thursday night games go. And when people are complaining about how ugly it looks, it's usually because the Patriots are playing. Some team is playing like the Patriots were. The Vikings really had none of that. So a lot of credit goes to them. But obviously, you know, they get the one Hunter Henry pass in the end zone that is reviewed, comes back, not a catch.

That did look like it hit the ground. But it's just another one of those that really looked like a touchdown at the beginning. You aim in with slow-mo, then you find out it's not. So there were certainly things that can go either direction, but most of them were Patriots. Just folks. If you're looking for a way to celebrate Minnesota's insane football season, go to soda stick.com.

See all the different designs from Kirko chains to the gritty to everything. Skull related soda stick S O T, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com and use the code Purple Insider for 15% off your purchase. Not playing well. It wasn't really luck on the Vikings. It was just the Patriots playing badly and the Vikings, to their credit, taking advantage over and over and over again. And that's what good teams do when teams make mistakes. It's when you run into the puncher,

you score on that possession and they scored on that possession and they took advantage when they needed to. So a lot of credit to the Vikings in that aspect, because it's really easy to do that on short rest. And it's really easy to do that after getting blown out the way you did to the Cowboys. And there was, there was really none of that, none of that at all for the Vikings. This to me was the biggest test that Kevin O'Connell has faced all year. I didn't feel that way about Philadelphia. It felt more like, okay, I mean, you lost to Philadelphia and we'll see where the season goes a long way to go from here. But this was, we have a big sample size and we've seen your strengths and we've seen your weaknesses.

And we've also seen how one team came in and revealed all of your weaknesses at once and that you didn't adapt during that game during Dallas. And how do you build on that really mattered to me. And also how did you have your guys ready? Because I think there was a thing in the years past where it was a lack of confidence and it was a, are we going to do this or here we go again? Or were, you know, are we really a good team? Are we not a good team? And I think it was maybe Adam Thielen who said in the locker room tonight that players showed up

earlier for this game than they usually show up to the stadium. Like after last week, it wasn't a, well, I guess that's who we are and oh, and it's all falling apart and the paper tiger is coming apart or the house of cards is falling down. It was, we really want to show everyone that we deserve to be at the top of your power rankings, that, that we deserve to get, we deserve to get the type of attention that Dallas got last week. And by the way, another impressive win from Dallas today against the New York Giants. So, you know, there's still a good team and you may face them again.

These teams that have beat you like Philly and Dallas. The Patriots are not Philly and Dallas. I don't think they're really in that ballpark. They're much more of a middling kind of mediocre team that doesn't have a ton of offensive firepower and clearly is not as sharp around the edges as previously, but that doesn't take away from the win because of the circumstances and also having to overcome a poor defensive performance where Mac Jones was able to put up probably one of the best games of his entire career. I did want to talk about two things around the edges. You got to one of them, the Hunter Henry catch.

From my view and looking at the broadcast in the press box, we have the TV right over where we're looking down. I thought they were going to let it ride. I thought they were going to say that that's a catch, but maybe he was down at the one possibly because it bounced a little and rolled and he wasn't in full control in the end zone. And I guess my thing is, I still don't entirely know what a catch is. I guess they wanted better control as the ball hit the ground. I wasn't really sure that it definitively hit the ground. I guess from my

perspective and the TVs aren't enormous. So maybe there's a better view for the referees in that little booth where they can see better detail. I don't know. I thought it was a surprising overturn that absolutely helped the Vikings and took points off the board. And I guess for me, that took so long to figure that out that I was sitting here, like, there's no way they overturned it. It's taking forever. And then they did. So I don't know if I have like a hot take on that other than I really don't think I know,

or, you know, or refs know, or anyone knows how they choose to overturn things or not. And it makes it just as random as the calls themselves. I've been frustrated with replay since day one. And I think if you're a Patriots fan, you're like,

what, why, how, right. If that had happened to the Vikings, we would have spent like 37 minutes on it. Um, because it was just confusing for,

did it really hit the ground? Did it not? How exactly is that definitive evidence that it didn't. And then it took forever. So replay continues to be a scourge on America. But the other thing is not, you don't have a hot, you don't need to have a hot take on that, but the Greg Joseph issue, it is a problem. And this game could have gone a different direction because the guy can't make extra points, five missed extra points this year.

I don't know what they're supposed to do with it, Paul, because when you win like this and you bounce back and everybody feels like, Hey, we can play with anybody. If you cut the kicker, it really feels like, Oh wow, really? You're cutting a player. Like we're one of the best teams in the league. And you're going to chop off a guy that's been with us through this entire journey. And he does make his field goals as long as they're not over 50 yards. But I think that's one where Vikings fans can envision, oh, this could be a problem if he doesn't get that together. I don't think they should cut him for the record. I think that they need to figure out what are in the operation of the extra point is

causing him trouble. He lines up on the left side and pushes every single one of them to the right. So do they need to line up in the middle? Do they need to line up in the left? Do they need to hold it better? Do they need a different holder than Ryan, right? Maybe, uh, he's only Superman of punting, but not holding. I don't know, but do you think that they should invite some kickers into TCO Performance Center during this little break to have a tryout just in case things go pear-shaped with Greg Joseph? I mean, I guess I don't see why not. I guess the argument against it is you're hurting his confidence. But I would say make some extra points then. I mean, you've missed five.

The next closest kickers missed three, I believe. So this is clearly an issue. And I think the Vikings fans, the instinct is going to be yeah, cut him. But I think they also know the grass isn't always greener. They've Vikings have done this to a kicker or two before. Some have gone on Daniel Carlson's gone on to have a really, really nice career with the Raiders after you absolutely kind of kick him to the curb very, very early. So, yeah, it's a tricky question because you don't know. Like, the guys that are out on the street are out on the street for a reason, and you don't know that it's going to get better.

I don't think there's really much harm in bringing some guys in feeling like you can try to see if you have a better option or again experimenting with Greg Joseph being like hey man like we got to try some new things we got to even maybe put you in an uncomfortable position of putting it on the right hash and just making you kick it that way to really focus on fundamental I'm not a kicking coach I don't know how all that works so I would agree with you not it's not really I guess time to cut them we've seen teams kind of go through this before the, the Packers have gone through multiple cold stints with Mason Crosby. He continues to seem like in the big moments, he comes up for them. Greg Joseph has come up in big field goal kicking moments for the Vikings several times. So I

wouldn't cut him, uh, but it is concerning and it is something that needs to be monitored. And I think the Vikings probably just need to have a kind of break glass in case of emergency plan for if they want to move on at some point. And then to your catch point, I don't want I don't completely understand. I know Des Bryant was tweeting angrily about it. So if that changes your thoughts on it, he he was tweeting. He was upset about it. I think it's one of those where you watch it in full speed and it's a touchdown 100% of the time. And then we go through the instant replay and you find small little things that point to it changing. It looked like it may have hit the ground kind of immediately, but also like the ball can hit the ground.

It's about maintaining control. And when did the control stop being maintained? And is it the ground's fault? Like these are questions I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about and trying to answer because there is clearly no good answer. And the NFL doesn't seem to have a good answer for it. All I know is it was a touchdown and then they decided to overturn it, which usually takes a lot of evidence, which I just wasn't quite sure was there. So that certainly is a break, but it's just the way it is. So I,

I, I don't have a definitive answer on that. And on the kicking point, I think they just got to monitor it much closer maybe than they have been. And Matt Daniels, maybe you don't say he's going to have the best season of his career preseason because he's, he's certainly missing kicks and not exactly doing that.

I think it has to get a lot worse in order to cut Greg Joseph that for now, if it's just extra points, I think that's kind of glitchy. I mean, even think about when they had Kai Forbath and this is why I say this because Kai Forbath missed some extra points and they cut him because of it. And they drafted a kicker who turned out to be like the best kicker in the league, but they cut him too after an overreaction. And I think like Kai Forbath is a good kicker and Daniel Carlson turned out to be the best kicker and you cut both of them and kind of reactionary overreacted to the missed extra points, overreacted to a couple of misses in green Bay in 2018.

Like don't do that again. When the guy's history is overall pretty good, the 50 yarders, I'm not that concerned about like, those are hard kicks. He's generally been pretty good at those in his career. Like the same thing with extra points. Like, I think that he can probably get it back together at some point and kickers are just too hard to predict. So what's to say that the next guy who doesn't even have a job right now, and maybe it was in the XFL that like, Oh, that he's actually a better option. Like, is there, is there the best kicker in the world hanging around? Like

probably not at this point. And that goes for a lot of things and had a great post-season and he's doing horribly as the Bengals kicker this year. It's just so, it's just so volatile and you just don't know what quite to believe. That's exactly right. I mean, the sample size are small football's weird, but at home, the dude should make his extra points. I mean, there's no question that if you're worried about that, I think you're right. It's just that like, when it comes to some of these things, when it comes to a lot of parts of the defense and i do agree there needs to be some adjustment to be more aggressive to at least make your opponent think at some point you may blitz and all the numbers by the way say that no they don't blitz at all and they play this cover too all the

time and nothing ever changes that is concerning that they don't feel the need ever to adapt even after what Dak Prescott did to them and even facing a quarterback who is horrendous when he gets splits horrendous when he gets pressure and you saw that on that on that sack where Daniil Hunter got him he's horrendous in the pocket when he gets pressured no pocket presence really whatsoever but boy if he stands there all day he can deliver to wide open wide receivers over the middle or guys who have run past Duke Shelley. Like he could certainly do that, especially with a backup corner in the game. It felt like it was time to blitz. And so the same thing kind of goes for their weaknesses there that goes for the kicker where I, I accept them. I accept them

as weaknesses of this team. I don't think they're going to change. I don't think Ed Donatello wakes up tomorrow. I was like, you know what? I listened to that purple insider live stream. And I got to tell you, it's time to start bringing the heat. Like, I don't think that's happening. I think he's thought about it. I think the first time he's right. Right. So I don't think that's going to change and i don't think that they should react and panic and change the kicker but you're going to have that fear there's one thing that can overcome all of this and it's an offensive performance like tonight this is sort of the evidence right here of like this is how the league works right like sometimes you get presented with

the other offenses working and your kicker missed it and like different problems, but what overcomes everything is having great quarterback play, which they got tonight and a great performance. Some couple times where Kirk almost threw pick sixes, uh, and got away with it a few times, but overall a great quarterback performance and a great receiver performance. And that's what's going to drive you to where you want to go. And also, of course, good offensive scheming and the rest is just the obstacle course that

you face for the rest of the season. So the Vikings are now cruising toward the playoffs after this win. This was a big one along with Detroit. Not that I thought Detroit had any real chance to catch them, but could make things interesting if the Vikings started to let it all slip. And anybody who's been a fan of the team for a long time would tell you there's almost no lead too big that they couldn't start to slip back to the pack and fall apart. But the way Detroit lost that game, my gosh, Daniel Campbell, what are you doing at the end of that game? I mean, that is going to be the difference for them

between having a good season and mostly a terrible season is the guy can't make late game decisions, but the Vikings are the beneficiaries of that and now sit in a position to put it on cruise control and still make the playoffs or week after week prove that they can face some of these elite defenses in my mind, Paul, and maybe you could give me to end our stream here, a eight out of 10, nine out of 10 for how important this thing was. I thought overall, I mean, I was giving them credit and calling it one of their best, if not their best win of the year, because I was factoring importance into this and how much it would mean to the morale of the team, to how for the standings as well, because it sets them up in a position where not only can almost nobody catch them, but nobody can almost even catch them for the number two seed, which means that they

would get to play the number seven here at us bank stadium. I'm going a little far ahead of ourselves here, but this is a big win for that too, because they just extend their lead on that number two seat right uh yeah i would also give it around an eight and first off just for not feeling or kind of even opening the door for is this team spiraling uh i think you lose this game suddenly you're eight and three not that that's really affecting like your chances to make the playoffs like you're gonna make the playoffs barring a just epic like collapse for the ages where you lose like nine straight. Like you were going to make the playoffs regardless of the result tonight. But just like to to feel like you've corrected it and quickly corrected at least some of the aspects that went wrong against the Cowboys.

I think that's massive. And then from a standings perspective, they're nine and two. The 49ers look really really good they're six and four you're not that far off and the difference between the two and three seed is if both you win you're playing each other and that decides home field advantage and that's a big thing for this team if they can have home field advantage so I know they're still fighting for the one seed that's still in the realm of possibility especially if Dallas beats up on the Eagles in their next game. And Dallas has three losses. The Eagles only have one right now.

So there's still a world where they can try to sneak in there. But I think importantly, trying to secure home field advantage for a potential second round matchup is also a big deal. And so you're keeping the 49ers at an arm's length in that race too. So I think if we're already talking seating more so even than the one seat, because I think that could still be out of reach for them at this point, trying to stay locked into that two seat where you're playing the worst NFC playoff team, which there could be a bad team in the playoffs.

And you could really get lucky or not get lucky, but because you earned it, but you're, you might just get to play a bad team at the seven seat. And then you also get another home game. Like those are big things. So yes, combined with not feeling like you're going downhill and combined with the fact that this is a big one already for seating, it's about an eight, I feel like for this team. Uh, and, and they're headed back towards the right direction where they want to be, uh, which was not the case four days ago. Yeah. The one seed, I mean, that's not out of reach because Philadelphia has shown some cracks in the foundation. They lost the game. They almost

lost the game to the Indianapolis Colts. And if they lose one and the Vikings win, then it's like, okay, now you're, now you're tied, but they have the tiebreaker and then it only takes one more. And, uh, they could go into the last weeks of the season in a race for that one seed, which is now absolutely massive. I mean, you get a week off, you get to play at home. I mean, everything is laid out for you. It's a huge reward. And so that's what they have to play for, for the rest of the season. Not just do we make the playoffs, but can you chase down the Philadelphia Eagles, which would be huge if they had lost this game? I wouldn't have said it was completely out of reach, but maybe mostly, and it would have felt out of reach if they had say like not scored a couple of times that they

did and they lost 26 to 18 or something. I think we would have gone like this offense just cannot take you to a one seed. You're going to get to the playoffs and then who knows, but it's going to be really hard with offense like this. But the fact that they could put up 33 and Wong moves touchdown helps, but, and consistently show what they can do on offense and have Jefferson come back and dominate, have the offensive line hold up. Like all those things matter to what we think for the rest of the season and where they could be in that seating. Um, and more than anything, and I know I've said it, but I'll say it again,

just the mentality of the team to come back, to believe in the coaching, to have the coaching come through for them. That's such a huge deal. I remember a player, former player said to me one time, what players want from coaches is to draw me up a play. I mean,

a lot of times they don't need a lot of motivation and stuff in the culture thing. It does matter and whatever, but draw me up a play. And they drew, they drew some place that tonight they drew some plays very well against a really, really good new England Patriots defense. So the Vikings are nine and two. They are rolling now into a section of the schedule that isn't super scary. They're past the super scary. They play a good defense next, but not a very intimidating offense in the New York jets. They get to continue to be here at home for most of the rest of the season until those last couple of games at Chicago and a green Bay. So this was a swing game to put them in a great position for the rest of the season. And of course, we will be breaking it down.

And if you are watching at this point in the stream, we do the Purple Insider podcast every single day. So go to wherever you download your podcast, get it there. If you don't already listen to the show, would love you to join us there. We've got Brian Murphy, Jeremiah Searles, former Viking. Paul and I are always doing our thing and lots of other guests as well. So a very, very exciting night. And you couldn't have asked for anything better for a football game.

I mean, from start to finish, a great football game. And thank you to the National Football League for a tremendous day from start to finish of football throughout this day. So thanks, everybody, for joining us. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Thank you very much, Paul Hodowanek, for your time. And we will catch you next time. Thanks, everybody.