Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What do the playoffs mean for Sam Darnold?

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the implications for Sam Darnold on the future and the Vikings playoff path. Then Manny Hill picks the entire playoff bracket Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

uh okay man well how about this while my head's frozen i'll fix this you uh tell me about the implications of this first round playoff game uh on sam darnold's future well i i think it a lot of this and and you're right i mean i think you know what happened last night and without badly things went last night it does kind of put everybody in this mode of like okay now maybe this is not quite as easy of a uh decision about bringing sam don back. And it does bring a little bit of pause, but I think a lot of that can change if Sam Darnold's able to put together a really good performance on Monday night against the Rams and the Vikings are able to advance.

Obviously, if they're able to get to the NFC Championship game or something like that and just go on a deep playoff run, then there you are. You're back. Back in the flesh. I'm i'm here yeah but but yeah i mean obviously i think what what happens over these playoffs with sam darnold it seems like it's going to have an impact on what they decide to do with him going forward i mean if he if they go into if they go into SoFi Stadium next week and Sam plays the way he did last night,

I have a really hard time believing that they're going to try and bring him back. And I don't know if that's even the fair or best way to approach the situation. But if you're looking at a big game that they had last night a huge opportunity to get the number one seed you get a great performance from your quarterback it's very likely that you win that game and you're not even worried about having to play next week um but you you get that kind of performance in that on that kind of a stage, and it does kind of make you wonder, like, huh, is this like a situation where we want to give him a three-year contract to kind of keep him around,

or do we maybe just want to completely pivot and go to J.J. McCarthy? Now, again, like I said, if he throws for 380 yards and four touchdowns on Monday night, then I think mostly what we saw against Detroit last night will be not completely forgotten. But I think people's minds will be a little bit at ease. And the thing of it is, is what's going to be fascinating to watch is we have seen Sam D darnold this season bounce back from poor performances you know this the the the type of things that we saw last night have not been something that has like lingered over two or three games to where you're like dude what's what's what's wrong with sam what's going on um he's been able to bounce back from that and i think he deserves a lot of

credit for that so what happens on on Monday night is going to be, I mean, everybody's going to be paying attention to that. Obviously people are going to want the Vikings to win in advance, but how Sam Donald performs is going to be a big part of that determining his future. I mean, he,

he might perform well and they might lose a game. They might lose the game in a shootout and people might still feel pretty good about you know possibly bringing him back for next season all right let me switch you back to the other side okay i did not feel comfortable with you on my left i need you on the right it's got to be this way yeah yeah this is how the show works um so i i that what you said is correct, that there's no way you can ignore what happens in this game, because if you're, let's say, making a plot of data points of Sam Darnold's career and you're trying to decide how big the bubbles are for how much they matter, right? A win over the Tennessee Titans who are going to draft number one in the league, that's probably a very tiny spec. It matters, but it doesn't matter as much as playing the Detroit Lions on the road

and missing a bunch of throws and also maybe struggling to set protections. I don't know that because I don't know what the calls are. I just know that that's been a thing throughout the season from time to time that we could see from the Rams. They could say, let's go all in on sending some of these blitzes, but you know, it's a crazy stat. You try to hunt down answers for stuff and trends and what went wrong and right. Sam Darnold before last night had the highest rating, just QB rating

in the NFL on blitzes. And then last night struggled against the blitzes and really struggled when they didn't blitz and got four man pressure where that was happening a lot through the interior of the offensive line, which remains a question mark. Last week, the interior played great. Reisner was really good in that game. Bradbury was fine against the Packers, which usually doesn't happen. And then Brando was fine too. And we talked a lot about it. Whoa, this pass protection, all of a sudden it's so much better. It used to be that lasted exactly one week. And like, sometimes that's just how it ends up going is from week to week. It depends on the game plan and so forth about just, you know, how the other team was able to attack you.

And the Lions did an amazing job at it. Darnold also caused some of his own pressure by hanging on to the football and having his timing and decision making were off. And just everything, everything was wrong in that football game. But how big of a bubble do you want to make it for our data points? Because it can't be the whole chart. I noticed for a lot of people, it's just the whole chart. It's over decision-made. They're going to McCarthy. Why? What? After winning this many games, like it's, I feel like every time I say it, I say it, do I not say it with enough oomph to realize how crazy it is to win 14 games?

How rare it is? How few times it's ever happened? How many seasons in the NFL that would have won you your conference? It just happens that there was another team that also was a behemoth this year, just like the Vikings were. And I really feel like we need to

make the Rams game, the right sized bubble, not the whole chart again, like people were trying to do last night, but it does get weighed more than your regular games, your win against Chicago. I thought that it was a big bubble, how he played against green Bay. Remember the only reason they had a chance at this, this is another thing to keep in mind about last night. The only reason that they had a chance at this is because Sam Darnold was awesome against the Seahawks and won them the game in the rain, in the atmosphere against a team that has, what do they end up with? 10 wins, double digit wins. He makes plays. He crushes the Atlanta Falcons. He crushes the green Bay Packers. Like that's the only reason

you're here. And then you're like, ah, that didn't happen. He's trash thrown. Whoa. Even to get there, he had to be an elite quarterback for weeks and weeks. And you can't that, that to me, that bubble is much bigger than what happened yesterday. And I don't want to look at this Rams game and say, well, you know, that's a team with a good defensive line, by the way, Jared versus really good. Cam Robinson had a tough go against the lions, which I think maybe some of that is just not being a part of this team all year some of it is sometimes an offensive tackle that's not christian derisaw gets beat and has a bad day can't happen against

jared verse can't happen on the interior versus brandon fisk they've got good players and so if sam darnold gets pressured like crazy and doesn't have a great day, are we going to say, get them out of here? And Morgan says if 14 games doesn't mean anything if you lose in the first round. But when you're evaluating a quarterback decision into the future,

how 14 games doesn't mean anything. What? Then Nick Foles should have been the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback. Trent Dilfer should have stayed with Baltimore forever. Jeff Hostetler should have been the New York Giants quarterback. I mean, that's not how it works either when it comes to evaluating things like this.

Well, two years ago when the Vikings went 13 and four and we were talking about, we were having a conversation about what is the future of Kirk Cousins? Should they move on? Was this kind of the last hurrah this first season with Kevin O'Connell? And what was everybody saying? Well, you can't just let Kirk Cousins go. They won 13 games this season. Like how do you do? So that part of it, the type of season that you have and how many games you win does tend to always sort of play a role in, you know, when you're trying to make a decision on a quarterback.

And it should. I mean, because that's, the more times you have opportunities to win double-digit games and get into the playoffs and get into that tournament to try and make a run to the Super Bowl, it becomes a situation with whatever your quarterback situation is, you're going to have to think about it. And you're going to have to make some sort of a decision when the season is over.

And again, Vikings still have to play a game. The season's not over yet. You know, I was texting with you earlier today. It's as crazy as this sounds, the Vikings still have a very small chance of hosting a game in the divisional round. They basically need the other two road teams this wildcard weekend to both win. Then they would be the second highest seed available left at that point.

And then they would be at home against Washington. So there's still a chance for that, too. So, I mean, it's not it's it's just one of those situations where you have to kind of let everything play out and then look at how everything transpired over the course of the season, the entire regular season, and the playoffs, and make that decision then. Because if you make a decision now, like I know a lot of fans are, because of what they saw last night from Sam,

everybody's – they're just off the bandwagon and that's it. It's just, it's not it. You know, he's not the guy got to move on to JJ now. Well, again, like I said, if you throw us for three 75 and four touchdowns next week and they beat the Rams, then what? Right. You know, you just got to let everything play out. Then the chat will look very, very, very different. And I think that is social media culture in general. And also the way television has become a reflection of social media

is whatever just happened is the complete truth and go back and watch after week one of any program talking about football, any social media accounts, things like that. After week one, I guarantee you, everyone will say, I was right about this. I was right about that. This team screwed. This team's going to win a championship. Is this the early front runner for MVP after week one? We see that all the time.

So that's the nature of the beast. And it's only, it's always been like that over reactionary, but now it's like they've added jet fuel to that with the fact that you can overreact to every play every quarter to where, you know, Kevin O'Connell deserves to be fired in the first quarter of the game. Cause he didn't hand the ball off to somebody or something like, Whoa, they're here trying to play for the one seed.

And now you're saying O'Connell should give up play calling duties. What? After this year, you think, what? But that's just how it works, right? I mean, everybody's got their own favorite craziest overreaction. But now we're privy to everybody else's and people rile each other up, which is why you and I try to fly evenly on the show and look at the whole picture. We look at all the bubbles.

We're missing a few of them. We got to see what happens in these next few games. But I don't think, I do not think in the Vikings front office that the decision is resting on Los Angeles. I don't think they're saying, all right, let's go to the stadium today. SoFi Stadium. And let Sam make the decision for us of whether he's coming back next year.

I think that already in the front office, they have planned out different paths to present to ownership and they have their arguments for each one and they're going to decide together which way they're going to go. This is how the competitive rebuild happened. It's how we got here. It's how they moved on from Kirk Cousins. That's how it's going to decide together which way they're going to go. This is how the competitive rebuild happened. It's how we got here.

It's how they moved on from Kirk cousins. That's how it's going to work. They're going to get together and Kweisi is going to have all the analytics and Kevin O'Connell is going to have his opinion. The ownership is going to have theirs. You're going to have the pro scouts or whoever else is involved, the coaching staff, Josh McCown, everybody. And they're going to talk about it.

And they're going to say, it and they're going to say, here's our pros and cons. And it's funny because real football decisions come down to, you know, let's put a little pro and a little con, and then let's all make our decision. But I think with Darnold that when you've played this well, when you've reached a certain peak of being in the top seven or eight quarterbacks, it's really, really hard to just go, eh, who needs them? And Trevor says here, Matthew's dead wrong on Darnold. If they sign him to a big contract, it defeats the whole point of letting Kirk cousins walk. Not so much because you have to, well, first of all, I mean, the franchise tag thing,

no matter how many times I explain, it's just not going to stick because like Kirk Cousins screwed their salary cap for so many years that no matter how many times I say, this is actually different. And you look at Andrew Van Ginkle, who's getting $3 million this year on the cap. You could do that with whatever guard you sign and push it down there. People are not going to accept it. And I understand that, but here's where it's different. There were two seasons where Kirk Cousins signing was justifiable 2018 and 2019. Some of us maybe weren't the most in support of it, but the salary

cap was fine in 2018 and 2019. They had a two-year window to win a championship with the 2017 team. They fell short, but not for a lack of salary cap space, not for a lack of team building. That was really because their quarterback wasn't good enough to get that done. And they hired the wrong OC and they decided to spend their cap space on a DT instead of a guard and we can go on forever. But the point is that when they did that, when they went and signed Kirk cousins, they still had the same roster that they had before. And they fumbled their chance to go back

into the playoffs in the final week of the season, when cousins and Thielen got an argument in the sideline and the bears starters were laughing at them on the other side of the season when Cousins and Thielen got in an argument in the sideline and the Bears starters were laughing at them on the other side of the field, not because of the salary cap. So I think that if you look into how much space they have for next year, they can absolutely do this. And I think a lot of you are kind of reaching for arguments because you just never wanted this guy. It's been so clear, Manny, from this whole season long when they're five and oh, people couldn't wait for them to be the 2016 season so they could get it over with, get to the draft,

get rid of Sam Darnold, move on to JJ McCarthy. And it's felt that way the entire time. Like there were so many people who put their hearts into JJ McCarthy and that idea that any other path is just F you when you bring it up, but it makes way more sense to run back with the quarterback that got you here than it does a quarterback who has never played, who is 21 going on 22 years old, coming off a major injury. Yeah, and by the way, and not only that, but coming off a, when he was playing collegiately, he was kind of in a situation where,

and you and I talked about this in the draft leading up when we were going over different quarterbacks, you know, would they take Pennix? Would they move up and take Drake May? All of that stuff is J.J. McCarthy moving up, all that, all those things. We talked about like, OK, we can see the physical tools of J.J. McCarthy. But, you know, for a lot of his playing time at Michigan, he wasn't asked to do a lot. He didn't have a lot of weight on his shoulders to sort of carry that offense and lead them down the field. It was running the ball and playing really good defense. That's how Michigan won keys to J.J. McCarthy and, you know, he's going to win 14 games like Sam Darnold did this year. Like, that's not a guarantee. I mean, you move on from Sam, okay, and happens if they go 10 and 7? Because the schedule will be a little bit harder.

And, you know, you're dealing with a quarterback who's younger and not quite as experienced. So he's going to make some mistakes as well because he doesn't have a lot of experience. And you go like 10 and 7. Well, that's a downgrade from record from the previous season. Is everybody going to go ape bleep because of when that happens? And it's like, well, okay, but this is what you wanted.

And this is what you probably should have expected when you make the transition to a new quarterback like that. So I think that before people sort of jump the gun and just say, no, screw Sam, get him out of here. Let's go to JJ next year. You got to be really careful with that because things are going to be, things would be a little bit different. And if you think that he's just going to step in, you're going to go 14 and three next year

and go to the Super Bowl. Like there's a process to all of this and it's not going to be that simple. So that's just something for people to, I think, keep in mind. Trevor says, I am being a jerk. Dang. Old me again, I am being a jerk. Dang old me again, Manny being a jerk. Sam, uh, Darnold is good at 10 million. He will want 50 million to resign.

I mean, I may be a jerk, but you're not listening. I think that may be part of the trouble. See, I've explained about four different times how if you franchise tag Darnold, they'll be paying the same on the salary cap next year at the quarterback position as they are this year because Kirk Cousins is making $28 million to not be a Viking this year. Understand? So when you sign players like Blake Cashman, Jonathan Grenard, and Andrew Van Ginkle, if you use overthecap.com and you go look at their cap hits for this year, you will be very surprised to find out they're not very big. Because if you have owners that like to spend signing bonus money, that means you can spread that money out and you can prorate some of it.

You can put it a little here, a little under the couch cushion. Rob Brzezinski knows how to do this. And you could create smaller cap hits in a short window of time to spread out when your window to win is despite this one year of having a higher contract. I have suggested the franchise tag for Darnold. I have not said pay him $50 million a year for the next five years. So again, I'm not sure if I'm being a jerk, but I may be not getting my point across clearly that the salary cap stuff is just

not as much of a problem as a lot of people are making it out to sound in a short window of time. Now, if you are going to have Sam Darnold for your five-year quarterback, then absolutely you need to make sure that he's one of the five best quarterbacks in the league. And then it will be a bigger challenge to sign players, but not for 2025, not for 2025. And then you spread out your decision. You, you push your decision down the road. You develop McCarthy over a full off season, not three quarters of one and an injury over three preseason games. And then he gets to be the backup quarterback. If Darnold gets hurt, then you have probably the best backup quarterback in the industry

for 2025. And then if Darnold wins 13 games again, then you start having that conversation about giving him the bigger extension because that's who he is. And then even to go farther down the road, they are in the playoffs, Manny. But yet this is what I'm doing tonight, right? Explaining how the whole salary cap works in a very jerky fashion i'm told so the uh even if we get past 2025 and the vikings then extend sam darnold and trade jj mccarthy because they've decided he's an elite quarterback and they can win the super bowl with them just like jalen hurts jordan love jared goff matthew

stafford these are all playoff quarterbacks whose teams paid their quarterback, oddly enough. Then they will make the first year of that a lower salary cap hit like Baker Mayfield, who is being paid $6.9 million on the cap this year. So this will not become a trouble for them until 2027. Okay. I'm not that worried about that today. Am I reading this right? I'm on over the cap right now. So you got Kirk's 28, 28 and a half million dead money. Am I reading this correctly? That Daniel Hunter's 14.9 million dead money as well.

Marcus Davenport, 6.8. Those teams draft better the los angeles rams gave away all their draft picks try again sorry go on well yeah i mean i'm just i don't know we're just doing this lewis scene everybody's complaining about lewis scene you'll get 5.4 it's just the same same arguments over and over again and i've reached a point of boredom so we should really talk about the playoffs and how they're going to play out because now i'm just tired of it for 43 million for sam is not going to hurt anybody next year folks okay the vikings are paying like 60 million dollars in dead money this year and they went 14 and 3 i mean they'll be okay they'll be okay giving sam

the franchise tag next year no one wants him it. No one wants him. This is what's really happening here, Manny. It doesn't matter what the facts are. It doesn't matter. They want him to fail against the Rams and they want him to be gone. They want this season over and they want J.J. McCarthy playing and they want to get to free agency and they want to get to the draft so they can have a lot of fun with exciting signings and draft picks and get the heck rid of Sam Darnold. Am I reading the room wrong here? Because, man, this is what it feels like. This is what it feels like.

It's wild. What other quarterbacks in Vikings history have won 14 games in a season and had 102 quarterback rating? I don't know. I don't know too many, but he did lose yesterday and played badly. There's no doubt about that. I don't know, man. I don't know. I was, I was going to try to not lose my patience today, but I have lost my patience today. I just want people to say what they really mean. Because since I put so much effort into learning how all this stuff works and how the Vikings front office decision works and how their salary cap works and how they've done things in the past and all that stuff. What I'm trying to do is lay out how this decision is going to be made and then how they could work

around it. But what keeps being thrown back at me is the same argument over and over again. No, they can't sign anybody if they don't move on from Darnold. And then they're going to have this terrible roster somehow, even though they have most of the same roster and the same players and they get Derisaw back from injury and McKay Blackman back from injury and all those things. They don't have that many people who were leaving. They don't, they just don't have that many players who are leaving in free agency. I think Bynum probably stays. Maybe Byron Murphy goes. That's about it. You're running back. You're running back the majority of this roster

for next year, even with Sam Darnold, if you sign him to the franchise tag, which if you look into that as well, it's just not that much. It's probably about the same price as, uh, as Kirk cousins got paid this year for the Atlanta Falcons. So what's, what is frustrating to me is no matter how many times I lay this out on the show, it does not seem to matter to anyone. They just continue to say the same point over and over, which is also funny because I'm the one that beat the drum for the last six years or whatever that it, uh, it actually is a better thing to have the rookie contract and that they were going in the right direction.

All those things, right? Uh, I was beating that drum, draft McCarthy, just pick a quarterback, all that sort of stuff. And I still believe that's a good thing for them to have McCarthy on the rookie contract. We're only talking about next year and what the plan should be for them. Not your hundred year plan for a million years down the road,

which even then I laid out how that would still work. And all I keep getting is, yeah, but they can't sign a guard next year. They can. Okay, they can. But the thing of it is, is to your point, like these types of conversations require nuance. Like, you know, we talk about how important it is to,

you know, you get a young quarterback on a rookie skill contract and it, you know, we talk about the benefits that come with that. And that still reigns true, but there is room. We always have to leave them for nuance because things are a little bit different than what we expected that happened,

you know, that happened this year. We didn't expect Sam Donald to play this well this year we didn't expect sam donald to play this well this year but the reality is he did and they went 14 and 3 and he played fantastic for a majority of the season and so now it kind of changes things to where it's like okay maybe you don't necessarily have to go to jjJ. McCarthy next year because you have Sam Darnold, who is 27 years old, and he has shown that he can be successful running this offense and you can have a team that's competing and get to the playoffs and they won 14 games.

So it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world to bring Sam Darnold back and let J.J. McCarthy develop behind the scenes for another year. There's nothing wrong with that. The Packers did that twice. They did it with Aaron Rodgers 20 years ago, and they did it with Jordan Love just a handful of years ago. And both of those situations turned out just fine. So it's okay. You can do that do that and then you still have you will still have an opportunity where you know you bring sam back next year and if he sucks you can move on from him and then you can go to jj mccarthy and see what happens and you're still on a rookie scale contract

you still got time it's okay i always love when this comes up, Susan, thank you for watching. Two quarterbacks is no quarterback. So when the Packers had Favre and Rogers, they had none. I don't think that that's what that means. What John Madden was saying is back in the day, they used to take quarterbacks out and they would, they would bench guys all the time. I mean, ask Tommy Kramer, he and Wade Wilson were going back and forth. Ask Rich Gannon. He's still mad about Sean Salisbury going into the games. You got it,

but that's in Madden's era, right? In the nineties, they used to sub quarterbacks. And so what Madden is referring to in that quote is if you're benching Rich Gannon for Sean Salisbury, it probably means you just don't really have an answer at quarterback. It doesn't mean you shouldn't have two great quarterbacks on your roster ever. Like the Packers have done numerous times. My, my annoyance here is that I think that what the team, what I'm trying to do, as I always do, as I've done so many times with so many different subjects, just lay it out there for you. Here's the facts of the matter. Here's why they would do this. Here's how they would do this. And then these kind of myth things come up,

like they couldn't possibly do anything in free agency if they bring him back. And then I explain why that is. And then I'm being a jerk. I guess that's what we do in society though, to somebody has the information. Then you just say you're a liar and a jerk, and then your opinion is right and so forth. But I know that's how it's done on the internet. So I get it. But like, those are the facts in the front office of the Minnesota Vikings. Here's what they're doing. They're making their cases and they're planning out.

Here's how we're going to do it. If Darnold comes back, if Darnold wins the Superbowl, okay. Well, that means he'll have been unbelievable. And you're probably giving him a Joe Flacco type of situation where Flacco was in a contract year when he won the Superbowl in 2012. And all right, build the statue out front of Sam Darnold. Cause he won the Superbowl. If it's less than that, and he plays at a certain level, then you're still, there's still a possibility of signing him to a multi-year contract because you'll just have been convinced over a very big sample of big games

that he can overcome things and he could be your guy and everything. If there's a middle type of performance, let's just say that he beats the Rams and plays pretty well, but not perfect. And then they go to Detroit again and it's okay, but it's not great. It's not good enough. They can't hang and they get beat on the interior line and they get beat in the secondary and they lose. I think they would probably still say, we got to bring Darnold back, take another swing at it, improve the roster on a one-year franchise tag. Most franchise tags are non-exclusive. I saw that come up. That's just

how most work anyway. So that would mean they could do the thing where if a team makes some crazy offer, they could give you two firsts, but maybe you would consider that, but you're trying to run it back, right? The next year, take another shot at the Super Bowl. So that's what the franchise tag would do. And then there's another scenario where Darnold plays absolutely horrendously against the Rams, and it looks like it did against the Lions. And you go, you know what? Great year, but I'm just not sure that this is enough.

And then maybe, maybe I still think this is a small chance. They say we're that confident in McCarthy that we're going to go to him and we're going to sign every free agent we can. And we're going to take a shot at that. That still remains a small percentage chance to me because the kid hasn't played any football and he didn't play that much football in college. And then you're going to ask him to try to carry a franchise back into the playoffs. That still seems far-fetched. This is what I'm trying to lay out. And all I keep getting is they can't sign guards in free agency. So that's, that's where I'm having a tough time with the entire conversation is I do think that the Rams game is relevant,

Manny. I just don't think that it's the big decision maker like everyone is treating it as. Yeah. Like I said, I think it's going to be, it's going to play a role in the decision, but ultimately they're going to look at the entire body of work of 2024 from Sam Darnall, and they're going to weigh the good versus the bad. They're going to say, well, look, he played really well through 35 touchdowns in a regular season, through for over 4,200 yards, and won 14 games. And the last game of the regular season, they were on the doorstep of the number one seed in the conference. And all right, so we take that.

Okay, we got into the playoffs. How do we look in the playoffs? All right, you look pretty good. Not great against the Rams. We were able to win that playoff game against the Rams. Go to Detroit. Again, played okay. Not great.

Let's look at the total body of work. Well, you know what? If we bring Sam back, we're still going to have a lot of cap space. You can bring in a guard, got a first-round pick, use a first-round pick maybe on a corner. Maybe that guy develops into something. Then you're going into 2025. The guys, the young players that you have on the roster already

are going to be a year older and a year better, a year more developed. Dallas Turner is going to be a year older, a year more developed. Might be able to get some more contributions from him. This stuff, none of this stuff has to be absolute. You don't have to say, Darnold sucks, he's gone. Get him out of here. Let's go to JJ. Because again, I'm going to keep saying this. You go to JJ McCarthy next year and you go 11 and six or 10 and seven. And still, that's still good. That's fine for a first year

young starting quarterback. But I guarantee you, coming off of a season in which you went 14 and three, there's going to be a lot of people that are not going to be happy because the expectation is that you're going to repeat what you did in 2024. And when that doesn't happen, because you moved on from Darnold and you went to a younger quarterback who has less experience and is going to make more mistakes just because he's a younger quarterback, then don't come back to us and say, oh, he should have been fired. You got to get rid of this. Got to get rid of KOC.

How can they regress like that? Well, because you went to a younger quarterback with less experience. That's going to happen. And I just think that where the age of the roster is, if you look at the average ages in the NFL, the roster, this is an older roster. This is a lot of the core players are in their primes. And a lot of the players are playing the best football of their careers. Like Jonathan Grenard, Andrew Van Ginkle, Blake Cashman. You've got Jefferson in his prime, Derisaw, O'Neal. There's so many players that are in a win now type of mode

that you have to do this again. And no, no one thinks that Darnold's going to win 14 games again, Giuseppe, but that's not what I was saying, but that's the point being though that, I mean, even you said 11, that would be great. But if McCarthy has a lot of rookie moments, as all the rookies did this year, even Jaden Daniels had a stretch, then you're still looking at, even if it's, if it's an eight, nine season, if you missed the playoffs, then you've taken this veteran team that was on the cusp of it here. And then said, sorry, you guys now have to reset as if you're a completely new, fresh, young team that is resetting its roster when really they've been in the win now mode, because that's how the

owners have wanted them to be. And the owners have been right this year that they should put all of that into it. And I will also say that a pretty big part of my frustration talking about this subject is not just that it always comes down to that one argument, which really to me reads as more, just people want the other quarterback because people always want the other quarterback, but also the Vikings are in the playoffs next week. And at the beginning of the season, we picked the schedule. We did it every week, every Monday. Manny picked the entire schedule.

It used to take forever. Then it got less and less and less, and week after week, marveled at this team, amazed at them overachieving the way that they did. Really fun conversations. How good can they really be? Is it really real? Are they going to win 13 games? They blasted through that tough part of the

schedule, this whole journey and everything else that they've been on. And then to have people so much more interested in talking about the off season to me, I just have, I just have not, I've not dealt with it very well to tell you the truth, because I've put in a lot of work going out there every day since July to cover this team, only to realize that I could have just sat in my basement and talked about the offseason with a draft simulator open and done better on YouTube. And so there's a little part of me that kind of can't believe that everyone just wants to throw this in the garbage after I felt like they did really up

until probably the Falcons game. And then you felt some people start to get on board and some energy and then this game, but you get the disappointment against Detroit. And then here we are again, back to the conversation that I think could be saved for February after we have all of the information, which leads me to Manny, the playoffs. Can you believe it? They're in it and they're playing the playoffs.

They're in the playoff game next week. You would, You would not think so. Could have fooled me. You would absolutely not think so. So anyway, well, I think I'm trying to find a good on the Internet playoff bracket. You know, there's nothing like the playoff machine on where you could just fill in the bracket. Let me just take a look here. We got a good bracket here. Okay, i got one uh so i want you to pick the playoff bracket and we'll do this each week throughout the postseason

and then we're gonna get to the super bowl and then there'll only be one game to pick so let's uh why don't we start out with this manny uh the vik are indeed. I also paid a lot of money for a flight to Los Angeles to cover this game. So I'm hoping that some of you guys will be interested when we get to Monday in covering that as well. So they're playing the Rams Vikings and Rams. Uh, who do you think wins the football game? I think the Vikings are going to win. I think they're going to bounce back and they're going to win. This is a little bit of a different situation from the last time they played the Rams. And it's kind of funny that the Vikings are for the second time this season are playing the Lions and the Rams essentially in back-to-back games.

First time around didn't go so well because they lost both times um but i i think they're going to bounce back this is this is a different situation than what they faced the first time where they had to you know play on the lines at home losing that game and then having to turn around on a really short week to play the rams on a thursday night this is a little bit different actually going to have an extra day because this game is on Monday night, which I think is going to help them a little bit. And I think they're going to come ready to go. I think KLC is going to have them ready to go, and I think they're going to win the game. I'll take them. We have gotten to the meme levels in the comments with, don't care about the playoffs when I don't think they're true contenders, then I guess you should just play video games and simulate the season each week.

I don't know, man. I personally spent my whole life watching football excited about the playoffs, so I'm not changing that now. Man, I'll tell you, it's so funny, Manny, because it has been a tougher crowd this year than it was when they were bad. It's been, it's been way harder than when they were bad this year. It's like Randy Quaid's character in major league too, man. I know you said that to me earlier and I still don't, I, no one watched major league too.

What did Randy Quaid's character do in major league? I didn't see it. If, if people have seen major it's not it's not a great movie um but it's basically randy quaid's character the the cleveland you know now guardians of course at that time they were still known as the cleveland indians and he's like the fan that is just like sort of he's like the fickle fan he's like you know he's like really excited and like they lose a couple of games and then he's like oh the season's over trade everybody this is you know this is terrible and then like they they're playing game seven of the alcs against the white socks and pedro serrano hits the home run for them to go ahead in the bottom of the eighth and everybody's all excited

and he just, Randy Quaid's character just goes, I think his name's Johnny, and he just goes, well, they're just gonna blow it in the top of the ninth anyway and then everybody just like starts hitting them with like their programs and stuff and it's just like, dude, come on, man. Like, let's have some fun.

Let's be excited. This team's good. It doesn't have to be pie in the sky, all optimism, be complete homers. But this team's pretty good. They've been pretty good. Let's have some fun with this, and let's see. This is a winnable game on Monday night. Let's go. Have some fun.

Okay, so I actually have seen Major League Two. It must have been one of those remember uh this goes way back when fox first became a network they didn't have enough programming so they just played honey i shrunk the kids major league two the worst movies like all saturday long and some of us did not grow up with cable so i would end up watching movies like that so i've definitely seen that. And that is a good description of how a lot of folks have acted, but I would be really curious to see how the world reacts. If the Vikings win this game in Los Angeles, because realistically

they should, uh, Andrew mentions that they're favored. They be they won 14 games and Los Angeles is a good team and I think they match up well against the Vikings but I don't think they're as good as the Vikings from top to bottom and they have been a solid team the second half of the year they've gotten away of you know away with a couple

of these wins like how about Kyler Murray throwing it directly into the face of his tight end at the goal line to uh not beat the rams you know things like that so uh i i do think that the vikings can win this game so that would mean they move on and uh washington plays against the tampa bay buccaneers How do you think that that game plays out? I'm going to go Tampa. I like the way that they're playing

and Baker's playing with confidence. Baker's had a great year. He's been fantastic this year. And they're going to be at home and I think Washington's been a nice story. Jane Daniels emerging. But I think this moment, playoff moment,

might be a little bit too big for the young quarterback. You know, Baker's got some playoff experience, won a playoff game last year for the Bucs. He's won two playoff games now, Baker Mayfield, which is twice as many as another certain quarterback that played with the Vikings for six years. Did I say that out loud? Yes,

I did. Anyway. Yes. I think the bucks away. Man juice. Thank you for the super chat says, are you worried about the emotional toll entering the playoffs? You mean for me or the team seems to happen a lot to the Vikings?

Not really. No, I, I mean, it's the NFL. It's no, one's going to have it all that easy, except for Kansas city that think that they don't have to play what in 37 days or something like that. They have to play games, but for the most part, you always have that. You always have going into the playoffs, tough games that have implications and stuff like that at the end of a season. I don't know of any team that usually doesn't have that. I mean, there's maybe one team per year that doesn't have some sort of tough journey that

they've been on. Really, it's the thing that you might worry about a bit is just with Sam Darnold. And he's done an amazing job this year of avoiding getting ahead of himself and thinking too much about what it all means. That would be the thing you might worry a little about is his first playoff game. It's in Los Angeles. That's his general area of where he's from. There's going to be a lot of pressure and intensity and everything else on him is the ball going to start coming out high. and intensity and everything else on him is the ball going to start coming out high and i know uh i think it was alissa in the comments wanted to

talk about um the the thing with his hand i don't know what to say about the thing with his with his hand uh i just we don't have any information about what happened clearly in the chicago game something happened to the finger but it didn't hurt him at all when it came to the, um, game against green Bay. So I don't know. It also didn't hurt him at all. When he threw a ball that should have been a touchdown Jefferson, he dropped it. So there, there were some throws in that game that were made and plays weren't made. This, this is a new one. I don't get this too often uh hey caller you sound like a polly and a homer just like paul allen shout out to uh paul allen who i know and see all the time around the vikings one of the great play-by-play broadcasters in the league as well not coming back next year. So I don't know why, why me saying that there's a good chance Darnold does come back

would make me into a Homer. I just, I don't understand the connection. That's the one thing I'm like, what, like what, what's the, I don't know. What, what is that? Like, I don't, I'm a Darnold Homer. I'm like the Paul Allen for Darnolds? I'm just laying out the decision here for you. I'm trying to dispel things that aren't true and use all the facts that I have, including that he's been one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the league and they won 14 games.

Those facts seem to get ignored a lot, but that's where we are. But I just don't understand how that would make me a homer to lay out the facts about the sam darnold decision what are you supposed to say i don't know i don't know what are people i don't know we're trying to pick the schedule and i keep getting thrown off that's on me that's on me uh so all right so you pick uh tampa bay to move on. Now, how about green Bay and Philadelphia? There's a small part of me and Vikings fans are going to get mad at me for saying this. There's a small part of me that wants to pick the Packers in this game, because this is,

this is kind of what they do when they get to the playoffs. I mean, they did this last year with Dallas. They went into the Jerry world and they blew the doors off the Cowboys. But I think the Eagles are a little bit of a different team. There's a lot of talent there. I imagine Jalen Hurts is going to be back out of concussion protocol and ready to go, I would assume. He was probably going to be able to play yesterday,

but they just didn't play him because they didn't need to because the game didn't matter, if I'm not mistaken. So the Eagles, you know, they run the ball incredibly well with Saquon. Their defense is good. Their offensive line is really good. Jalen Hurts is really good. I think that they're just kind of the better team. I do think this is going to be a close game, though, because the Packers are also good. Jalen Hurts is really good. I think that they're just kind of the better team. I do think this is going to be a close game though, because the Packers are also good as well.

Although them losing Christian Watson that went down for the, for the season, that's, that's kind of a big loss. That's one less weapon that Jordan Love's going to have to work with. But I think the Packers are well coached. I think Matt LaFleur is going to have them ready to play and it'll be close, but I think the Eagles will win well coached. I think Matt LaFleur is going to have them ready to play and it'll be close. But I think the Eagles will win just from being at home and having that advantage. Yeah, I think so too. The Packers have some interesting numbers. The times that we've seen them, we've not been that impressed because the Vikings have

spent most of the time way ahead against the Packers this year. But things like DVOA, some, some of the, you know, their point differential, things like that all look pretty good for the Packers as a matchup with Philadelphia, much better than your traditional number seven seed. Uh, the, the teams that were good this year were just really good. And the Packers, uh, I'm, uh, you know, I'm sure those cheese heads are looking forward to next year. Come on, folks. But anyway, those people, I will say, are pretty entertaining when it comes to the Packers fans. That's a whole different nation of human beings. Anyway, so I tend to agree with you, though,

that even though Hertz is coming out of the concussion protocol, really hard to say about just how exactly he's going to perform. But I think that they're the better team overall. Marty says that I'm a little off my game holding on to the mic too long. That might be true. That might be true. You guys have worked me up a bit. So that would leave the Vikings going to Detroit and that would put Philadelphia playing Tampa Bay. How do you think those two matchups play out? We'll pick the AFC side too, but we'll do this.

I will take Philadelphia and I'll take Detroit. Okay. So Philadelphia and Detroit beats the Vikings again at Ford field. And that sends Philadelphia and Detroit to the NFC championship. Who wins that game? I'm going to say Philadelphia. Okay. Philadelphia beats Detroit and goes to the Superbowl. Well, you're're uh we are both earning a lot of friends here tonight i've i've been called a homer and a jerk in the same episode

which is a new combination and you pick the eagles to go to the super bowl so at least you didn't pick the packers i guess to go to the super bowl and let's just i feel like everybody'd be mad at me if i pick lions to go to yeah at this point you know it doesn't have a no-win situation for me so what what do we make of the vikings season because we we've done this all year long where we've talked about not only the record but kind of what it means and hey if they got to this point, then who would they be playing? And what's the situation and all that sort of stuff.

So if the Vikings beat the Rams and lose to the Lions, what are we to make of the 2024 season? If it plays out the way that you just picked it. I think that as a whole, I think we give Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adolfo-Mentz a lot of credit for what they were able to put together as a season. As a whole, I definitely would not call the season a failure. It might be a disappointing ending, considering that just a week or so ago, we were talking about them potentially going to the Super Bowl. And that would be a disappointing ending, but not necessarily a disappointing season.

And I think that what it shows is Kevin O'Connell can continue to lead a really good offense and call plays and have one of the best offenses in the league and brian flores is legit defensive coordinator great defensive mind and that they've got basically it will show me that it you know and i've been shown already basically regardless of what happens in the playoffs that these guys know what they're doing and that the franchise is in a good spot they would have a decision to make at the quarterback position um but i trust that they're going to make the right decision whatever it may end up being um and i think that this this franchise is in a good in a good place and you know you make a couple more good moves over the next offseason and you're going to be right back uh you know if everything goes right and people, and you're going to be right back if everything goes right

and people stay healthy. You're going to be right back where you were this year, which is contending for a playoff spot, contending for the division, and possibly able to make a Super Bowl run. So I think this was a good season, regardless of what happens in the playoffs, because they certainly outperformed what i thought they were going to be which was probably like a nine or ten win team um and so when they when i expect that and they turn around and go 14 and three i can't really complain too much

i don't really have any complaints so yeah i think if you laid out at the beginning of the season this is where it would go. They would win 14, have a chance to be the number one seed, kind of get screwed by the rules and then end up losing to the team. That was the top Superbowl favorite from the beginning of the year. I'm not a gambler, so I don't know if their odds ever dipped out of the top three for being a Superbowl contender.

But I think the lions were always there from the beginning of the top three for being a Super Bowl contender. But I think the Lions were always there from the beginning of the season as the team to win the NFC. So if that's who you're playing against in the playoffs and in the last week, it shows you that you've elevated yourself all the way to being in Super Bowl contention. And if they went to Ford field in the divisional round and played a much better game, and you think about how close they were to playing a much better game last night, a catch in the end zone,

a throw in the end zone, a couple more handoffs at the five yard line. And maybe we're talking about the Vikings losing 24, 21 or something like that last night to the Lions and not what the score ended up being. The margin was very thin with the way the defense played for a large majority of that game and then the close calls that they had. If they go back and they play something like that and lose by three points to the team that goes to the Super Bowl, I think you're going to say you're there. You're there. A couple of more things. guys come back, make the moves and you're going to feel very, very close.

If they go to Detroit and lose 31 to nine again, then you're going to probably come away saying, well, it was a great season and it was the competence that was proved by O'Connell and by a quasi daful Mensa and the roster building, and they can go places, but they weren't that close to the absolute best of the best, which was Detroit. So I, I still tend to think if they played them again,

like if they played last night's game 50 times, that most of the 47 of those are close. But everything came together for them to end up losing the way that they did. The missed field goal when it was going to be 17 to 12 late in the third quarter. Then who knows how it plays out? How about Andrew Van Ginkle? I was just going to say that. I was just going to say that. Think about how, because

was it 17-9 when that happened? Now think about that. And that's a pick six. That's a touchdown if he catches that. So now it's 17, you know, I don't know if they would have gone for two or maybe just kick the extra point. But either way, it's either like tied at 17 or, you know, at 17, 16, completely different football game. And who knows what happens after that? So yeah, those are like the little things that on the first drive where Sam has TJ Hawkinson wide open on the seam up the middle and he just overthrows him by like seven yards. It's like, if you hit that, what happens on that drive? Maybe you get in the end zone, you know. There was a lot of little things that happened in last night's game

where you're just like, that happens. Maybe the end result is a little bit different. And then that does make you think, like, this team is not that far away. And again, let's go back to the first game at US Bank Stadium. Again, same situation. A couple plays here, a couple plays there. Maybe they win that game as well. So I think they're in a good spot.

I think they're going to be fine. And if that's how it plays out, if it's a close game and they end up losing in the divisional round, then we could say that they played toe-to-toe with the best of the best, came up a little bit short, but that they built a true contending team. If it goes the other way, then I guess they know where the bar is for next year. Matt asks, came in late to the discussion, have we discussed teams asking to interview flores yet have not talked about that uh it's really it's only the jets i think who have

included him on the list and i don't think there's a very high chance of him being hired by the new york jets as their head coach but it is why would he want to be head coach, but it is one more. Why would he want to be? That's another thing. It is one more interview. Yeah, I know, right? The crazed ownership in Miami versus the crazed ownership in New York. So, I mean, I don't think that's a great job to take. They are as down bad as you can be in the NFL. I also, when I look at that list, go, there's a lot of names

on it. The jets are interviewing just about everybody in the NFL, but it is one more interview than he got last year. And that's significant. I guess until we hear that he's some sort of finalist or something like that, then I don't think there's a big chance of him becoming the next head coach of the jets, but it became a little more possible today. Let's go to the AFC side of the bracket. Let's go rapid fire. If you can, Manny,

I know this is a struggle for you because you want to break down every single game. We'll do that on Thursday, a little closer when we look at the schedule, but just rapid fire it Houston and the LA chargers. Who wins that one? Chargers. I agree with you, uh,

Pittsburgh and Baltimore, Baltimore. I would agree with that as well. Pittsburgh, really the way that the game ended the other night, just sad and pathetic. And I just want to throw out there. Cause I know this was the game ago,

but for KOC too, if he he's listening just hit those timeouts just hit them timeouts don't don't wait for them okay because koc did this against green bay let's everybody run run to the line of scrimmage get lined up check check check tick tick tick tick tick you run 30 seconds off the clock just hit the timeouts deal with the implications later that's how you do it on Madden that's how you should do it in real life anyway uh Buffalo and Denver Denver's got no shot Bonix has been a nice story he's played pretty well it's been fun it did the buck stops here Denver it's over buffalo's gonna kick the crap out of you so i believe that would put uh if i'm not mistaken would that put the chargers and baltimore oh no no i'm sorry it

would be chargers and chiefs yep right chart chargers and chiefs who wins that one uh chiefs yeah i think so but that's yeah that'll be fun though those teams always play good games bills and ravens sign me up oh boy um the mvps playing each other that's a juicy one i know you said rapid fire but that's a hard one to pick. I'll give the edge to Buffalo because they'll be at home. Okay. That's a hard one to pick, though. It is. Buffalo and Kansas City and the AFC Championship. As it should be.

Or if it was Baltimore and Kansas City, too. That would also be as it should be. It seems inevitable. It really seems inevitable. I think the Buffalo bills are going to go to the super bowl, Matthew. Wow. And it's going to be, it's, it's, I think the reason why I think that is because this is almost like the year where they shouldn't do it because it feels like Josh Allen is doing everything by himself.

He's like really, really legitimately like carrying that offense right now. I mean, James Cook has been really good with the running game, but like Josh Allen has like been really carrying that entire offense. So this is of course like the year where it's like, ah, it's probably going to be too much for him.

And then of course, like he defies all the odds and they go all the way to the Superbowl. So I, I think Buffalo is going to go to the Superbowl Buffalo and Philadelphia in the Superbowl. One heck of a battle there. Who do you think wins it? I think the bills get it done. The Buffalo bills winning the Superbowl. I don't know about that, Manny. I do not know about that. Uh,. I do not know about that. They,

they, they are a really well coached team that has strengthened the offensive line. They run the ball better than they have in the past with James cook. They have one of the best defensive minds. There is a little bit of a concern though, from past years about the game management with Sean McDermott. Can you really

close out one of those games that they've struggled so much and will some of their weaknesses on defense that we saw against detroit especially will those kind of show up throughout the playoffs if they have to play someone like baltimore but if they're doing it at home but then they got to go to kansas city They did beat Kansas city earlier this year. This is a great side of the bracket with those teams. Cannot blame you. There's isn't really a bad pick between Baltimore, Kansas city and Buffalo,

but the bills did beat Casey earlier this year. Jeff in Seattle with the $10 super chat. Thank you so much for that. Our Superbowl window is open. Now you cannot turn this team over to an unproven rookie. with the $10 super chat. Thank you so much for that. Our Super Bowl window is open now. You cannot turn this team over to an unproven rookie. You just can't. Either Darnold or Daniel Jones

will be the starter next season. I can't see that being Daniel Jones, but I tend to agree with your sentiment. I mean, just it's too much to ask. And also, there's no rush to get to J.J JJ McCarthy when another year of development. And I'm sure that in green Bay with Jordan love, it was painful for people to wait for Jordan love when it's like, all right, we've seen everything there is to see with Rogers. We're tired of his

drama and get to the other guy, but developing and developing, uh, he got to a point where he was ready to be their franchise quarterback and he's been good for two years. So that's not a problem. If someone is given a chance to develop over numerous years. And, uh, so I, I get the impatience and it was very exciting when they drafted McCarthy and I'm sure everyone, when they would listen to our shows and are talking about his development and so forth that, uh, they got pretty pumped about where he could go. And I think you still, still should be. Uh, it's just that what's the right decision for next year right now. And I guess I am curious to see if it's impacted by the Rams game and how this ends up playing out over the next couple of weeks. So for the rest of the week, though, that's it.

You got a couple of rants. You got me called names, my own chat, call the Homer. Yeah, you know, these things happen, but that's that's probably about as much as I want to talk about the Sam Darnold decision for the week. So I got it out today and the rest of the week will be, I think a little more calm as we preview a game against the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs for a chance to advance.

I've known you for eight and a half years. And the last thing I would ever call you as a Homer. Well, you know, the thing about it is Manny is, uh, when the team wins 14 games, uh,

I am going to side with them quite often. In fact, even when it comes to this decision, if they decided after this playoffs to move on to McCarthy, then what I would probably say is I would have stayed with Darnold, I think, but I also know how good Kevin O'Connell is at what he does. And he's got a lot of information, uh, on both of these quarterbacks to make that decision. A lot of information more than I have even, uh, even from seeing every training camp practice and stuff, but he meets with them and sees them every single day. And he knows what they know as far as the

offense and what they could do. So whatever decision he makes is, is probably going to be one that I'm going to say, all right, well, I get it because you're the quarterback guy. So you know what you're doing here. But, uh, I also think that people should be thrilled beyond belief with what Sam Darnold has done this year. And I think maybe that's kind of digs at me a little bit. And you talk about like just evaluating things in a fair way. When a guy has 102 quarterback rating, 35 touchdowns, they win 14 games. He comes through in the clutch time and time again throughout this season. He leads them super well. He handled the McCarthy situation with such great class throughout the off season and that, you know, they're, they're buddies out there being good teammates and all those things that he's done. And you see him get picked up on his teammates shoulders. You see what it means to him.

You see what it means to them. And then to have people be like, get him out of town. It just doesn't sit very well. And I think that there's always the obsession with the next guy, the unproven guy. It's why people like the draft, but I also want to give a lot of credit to the guy who actually went out and won all those football games to put your team here because not a lot of people believe that he could do this. So I think a major part of it is I feel like he's not getting the credit he deserves for what he's done when we talk about just selling them down the river.

But they got to they got to beat the Rams, Manny. I do look at it this way. They got to beat the Rams. If they don't, then KOC has two great seasons with no playoff wins. Then Darnold has a great regular season that didn't ultimately end up getting you anywhere in the postseason. That's just not enough for this team if they can't beat Los Angeles. Yeah, I'm 100% with you, and I think this is why they play these games, and we've got to let this thing play out and see how things go

see how things look see how see how you know things feel when it's all when the dust is settled and everything's done i'm using a lot of cliches now um but are you saying to go one and oh this week manny one day at a time go one and oh in the uh in the la rams week want to know in the wild card super wild card weekend week okay i am i am laughing at uh slow town trev giving a five dollar super chat to say the the first seed has a 53 chance makes to the super bowl uh fifth seed 3.3 go lions one pride so you paid five bucks to support the lions on the channel. I mean, look, I, I'm so impressed with the lions. This is not an anti lions, man.

Nobody. I should be doing my Jared golf victory dance over and over again, because the quarterback rankers out there who spend all year long trying to rank the little quarterbacks. They never give him any credit. And for how, since 2018 and since that game in Los Angeles, every time his name comes up, I'm like, this guy's an elite quarterback. He's great. You don't want to put face him. He's really good. And, uh, so yeah, the way the lions built the team is also the way I've supported for years, which is going to the bottom, totally rebuilding.

So, hey, no one's more impressed with the Lions than me. However, as a stat person, I will say those percentages, I don't think are representative of a five seed that won 14 games. I'm just saying it's a little bit different of a year than usual. So anyway, that five dollars buys more diet dr prepper yeah this one this one's for you detroit hey also i love detroit had a great time there the stadium was really really nice uh it seemed like the fans were very accommodating to vikings fans not so much like some other nfl cities Philadelphia all the time. So I have a ton of

respect for the way that the Detroit Lions have built their team. And honestly, I'm hoping to go back because it was a lot of fun there. Great atmosphere. And I think it would be a great game if they played again. I don't think they're going to kick off out of bounds again. Manny. Yeesh. That game. There was so many just like what kick out of bounds. I will say one sort of off season thing.

And I don't, I don't even know what it would be. Cause it's not like firing Matt Daniels or anything like that. Not trying to suggest that, but I do think there's going to have to be some sort of conversation about special teams because special teams has been kind of low key, a little bit of an issue this year with just like punt returning and field goal kicking and kickers kicking the ball out of bounds and kickers getting

hurt and maybe not telling people that they're hurt. You know, I don't know, just speculating maybe, but special teams has been a zoo this year. So anyway, well, thank you. Almost all of you for a fun conversation tonight. No, this is what I want, and this is the reason I made it the headline. This is the reason I want to talk about it was to get it out of the way today.

And then we're turning the page. We're talking playoffs on this channel the rest of the week. And I'm sure that there will be many podcasts and YouTubes and stuff that just do all in and everything on Sam Darnold and that decision, but it's not going to get made until the season is over. So the team is in the playoffs with a chance to try to chase the Super Bowl. That's going to be my main focus for the rest of the

week. And no, Randall, I did not say fire Matt Daniels. I did not say fire Matt Daniels. You literally said, I'm not saying fire, Matt. Well, no, I think what Randall's saying is that you should be saying fire, Matt Daniels. I don't know.

The special teams has been better in the past. Just this year. It's I, I would, I would just call it shaky, shaky. So anyway, thanks so much everybody for watching and listening a big week.

Tons of guests going to be popping into the show thursday night you and i will be back manny and we'll see everybody then so take care football football