Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What does new data tell us about Brian Flores' defense and Vikings play calling?

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Sam Bruchhaus of SumerSports joins the show to discuss the Vikings' season through five weeks, Brian Flores' defense, and the team's play calling. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fanduel. Matthew Collar here, as always. And joining me on the show again, it hasn't been too long, but there's a reason why Sam Brookhouse is back on the show, data scientist at Sumer Sports, also a former collegiate linebacker. But you put in your big data science brain to work with something for Sumer Sports that is called Sumer Brain. And I have been playing around with this thing. It is, I would describe it as, and maybe I sound old with this. I don't know, but it's kind of like a search engine for data and analytics. So all you have to do, if you go over to Sumer Sports right now, anybody can check

it out. You guys have tweeted out is type in what you're looking to find out and you will get a flood of data that comes back your way. Sam, this is a pretty cool, man. I dare say revolutionary And so what we've done for the show today is we've put our own inquiries into Sumer Brain and we're going to talk about them. But yay, congratulations on the launch. I've seen a lot of awesome response for this. It's been really exciting. Sumer Brain, you can go sign up. It is a free tool where you can access the world of Sumer's data.

That includes defensive stats. That includes snap counts. That includes pretty much everything you could figure out about quarterbacks. my recommendation is ask it what you want define whatever the metric is that you are looking to seek and then ask it to contextualize over the entire season or over the entire sample we have going back to 2022 and it will return what you want it'll tell you what it thinks about it and as you mentioned it is the most powerful football data retrieval engine we're extremely proud of it and we really want people to go in and find the limits of it. And so that's sumersports.com

slash sumerbrain. Go check out my Twitter at Sam Brookhouse. I have a lot of guides. Sean Syed at Syed Schemes has some guides as well. And we're always willing to help out. And it's been really fun. So I'm excited to talk some of these cool stuff that we dug up with you today. Well, the best way to do it and show people how it works is for us to play with it ourselves and also see what we can learn about the Minnesota Vikings by doing it. So I asked Kevin O'Connell the other day after Carson Wentz led a brilliant game-winning drive against a great Cleveland Brown's defense. And it came to my Maddie brain. I was like, you know, I've seen Sam Darnold lead a bunch of game-winning drives. I've seen Kirk Cousins, who was previously

thought to not be very clutch, lead a bunch of game-winning drives. And now I've seen Carson Wentz do it, and I almost saw, well, actually, Nick Mullins did it against the Raiders in a three-nothing game. but Nick Mullins came pretty close to doing it a few times as well. And I started to wonder about whether the play caller is something that we don't value enough in a world where a lot of games are separated by one score. So here's what I threw in to Sumer Brain. I tossed in, where do the Vikings rank in quarterback rating since 2022 when they are down by seven or fewer points in the fourth quarter?

And here's what it told me. The Vikings rank fourth in quarterback rating in that scenario with a passer rating of 99.6. And the only teams ahead of them are Dallas, Dak Prescott, Tampa Bay, a lot of Baker Mayfield there, and the Cincinnati Bengals with Joe Burrow. I think, Sam, that that pretty well confirms my theory, considering the Vikings don't have Dak Prescott, even the current version of Baker Mayfield or Joe Burrow, that the play caller is a big difference maker in the fourth quarter of these games that are separated by one score. But how is a data scientist where you folks have long told us, no, no, one score games,

they're all luck. It's just random. They're spread out between, you know, over seasons, ups and downs and things like that. But I think when you have a play caller that has this much success over different quarterbacks, we do need to investigate further of what this means about the way Kevin O'Connell calls plays. laden games i i definitely think so and i wanted to understand a little bit more about what exactly was going on what was going on under the hood so i asked sumer brain about his under center play action usage his uh uh rpo usage his screen usage and he mixes in on many of those except for

the rpo in in in particular he mixes in all kinds of interesting plans and interesting play designs, and he does them pretty much all at a slightly above average level. And so basically what that means is you can't just sit back and play prevent defense when it's getting late in games because he's not just going to default to dropping back the passer, hoping that his offensive line wins in one-on-ones, and makes good throws. He's going to ensure that his best is going on the field in the fourth quarter. And while there probably is some variance or there is some luck, you can rest assured that Kevin O'Connell is going to unload the clip and has something, has a plan

for his quarterbacks in the fourth quarter. Well, and we've seen this in two games with two very different types of plans with J.J. McCarthy in the fourth quarter against Chicago and then Carson Wentz, where against Chicago, they ran the ball actually well. And that was something that you wouldn't expect when you're down in a game and you're trying to come back. And but they realized, hey, we've got to get Jordan Mason going and then built in some play action. And that would be a thing where, oh, man, we're down in the fourth quarter. We just got to throw, throw, throw, throw, throw.

And to build in run and play action, that game was the right thing to do because I think Chicago was starting to play back. Like, hey, we've got the lead. We're not going to load up the box or we're not going to play as aggressive. So they took advantage of it. And in this case, there was actually some surprising aggressiveness where they were looking for a one-on-one with Justin Jefferson. and for whatever reason, and I don't know why, Cleveland played single high safety and left Jefferson one-on-one,

and immediately the play call was there. And I think that that also goes into it that we always put the clutchness of a team on the quarterback. We don't as much talk about the head coach or the play caller, and we certainly don't talk about wide receivers as being a big part of this. But how many yards, this is maybe I got to assume or brain this, I mean, how many yards for Justin Jefferson have been racked up in these fourth quarters? playing against teams that are playing back and he's getting a lot of footballs thrown up to him out of desperation where it's like, hey, maybe you should be desperate to get the ball to Jefferson in the first quarter. But I think him and then having Jordan Addison back here, it's a very, very difficult combination just as digs and Thielen once were for opposing teams to stop when you are forced

to throw and to come back in fourth quarters. 100%. And two weeks ago, we talked about kind of the target rate and how we weren't getting enough at-bats for Jefferson and Addison. And they were going into two games abroad against very good pass rush teams. And while that target rate kind of remained the same, you saw that the targets were heavily, heavily targeted towards Justin Jefferson. And in the second game, they got Jordan Addison involved as well, particularly on that last drive as well.

And so I think Kevin O'Connell took a lay of the land and made a decision of like, Carson Wins is probably going to continue to be Carson Wins, but let's switch our play designs to ensure that at least our tippy top guy, Justin Jefferson, and then when Jordan Addison came as well, our quality certified wide receiver two, that they are getting massive amounts of action. And I think that's the reason why we have seen this offense at least look a little bit better in their ability to get those guys the balls,

even though from time to time it's still struggling a little bit. Before we get to, because you did three and I did three, and we're going to break those down. So before we completely change course to where you want to go with yours, I think that the cheat code of this league right now is short passing. Where last year, I don't think there was quite as much Brian Flores stuff everywhere in the league, but everybody saw it last year what had so much success for Flores. And now all teams all the time are changing up these coverages post-snap. they're sending blitzes. And if you could get the ball out of your hands in 2.4 seconds, as Carson Wentz did,

that kind of negates a lot of those things. And I think that Kevin O'Connell, maybe against Cleveland, out of desperation, knowing that he had a backup offensive line, found the model, regardless of who's going to be the quarterback going forward. But I almost think especially if J.J. McCarthy is going to be the quarterback going forward, that getting the football out of his hands quickly, sometimes to Jefferson out of the backfield, sometimes on just a quick little out route and things like that,

is going to be absolutely vital to keeping this offense on track. That's a major flag that I highlighted. And it may be a team-wide difference, but it's certainly showing up in the difference between McCarthy and Carson Wintz. McCarthy's time to throw was about 2.9 seconds. Thus far, Wins has been one of the fastest time to throw players in the league since he's been in there. And then the A-DOT has basically dropped average.

depth of target is basically dropped about a yard and a half. They've clearly switched a little bit of what they're doing, even though my super brain thing was looking at under center play action rates, which Kevin O'Connell has done at a high level throughout the years. And so I said, I want to understand which teams run under center play action the most. Let's define under center play action is offensive plays, which play is flagged as under center and it resulted in a passing attempt, a scramble, a sack. Tell us if it's play action, return the ranking of these. The Minnesota Vikings are still very high, but their efficiency is still pretty low. So I'm interested to see if we don't even go to a shorter passing game in the next couple weeks. And I think that's

something that could be looked at. And I think you highlighted it very well. And my friend Tay Sheth, who I think it's been on this podcast before. Anytime we bring up the A dot, we brought it up with Carson Wins. We brought it up with Mack Jones in the San Francisco 49ers last week where he has something like 42 passing attempts and an extremely low A dot. And if you list his A dot and you send that to Tage, Seth, he's going to say, what's the correlation with winning? And it's not high.

And so I think finding a passing plan that works is what's going to be key for the next couple weeks regardless of who the quarterback is for the Minnesota Vikes. Yeah, that's probably a tricky one, right? Like, if you have Tom Brady throwing your short passing game, and he's flipping it out to Wes Welker and Julian Edmund all the time, I bet your A dot has a lot of success there, but most teams are probably shortening it up when they have bad quarterbacks and they're concerned about trying to keep it from creating problems.

The thing with Wence is that he is a pretty good quarterback. He's not great, but he's pretty good. So if you can execute those things, I think you can keep the train on the tracks. Also, Yak is going to matter and probably go up, down from week to week, whether you get those yak opportunities, yards out for catch or not. So it's an interesting question. And I think that O'Connell has had impressively two very different plans from McCarthy and Wentz, in part because of who they are. Wentz is older, very experienced. And he's a shotgun quarterback. Like, that's what he did in Philadelphia.

He was not an under center quarterback. So now asking him, hey, go be under center, 25 dropbacks a game. But that is who JJ, McCarthy was in college, where he was an under-center drop-back quarterback. So, and play action, he was very successful in college. So I think that whether O'Connell has a lot of under-center play action or not will probably depend who's in there. Definitely so. But I will note that of the people who are at the top, it's almost always the same people,

the Los Angeles Rams and, thus, the Minnesota Vikings to a certain degree, the Detroit Lions, and thus the Chicago Bears. And that's the one I really want to highlight is because. Caleb Williams in college had no under center experience. That was a true air raid offense. And we've seen Ben Johnson start to kind of bring him along in that under center play action rate. They're technically above the Minnesota Vikings at about 14.92% under center play action rate. So they're able to bring Caleb along.

This is clearly something that that group of guys across the kind of McVeigh, Jim Harbaugh group likes to do, They think it's immensely effective. And obviously, when you're talking about the lines of the Rams and Stafford and golf, who have proven themselves to be two of the better quarterbacks at doing this in the league, if not in the history of the league at this point, they're going to continue. But there seems to be some belief that this is just effective on its own. And I wonder if that has something to do with the run game a little bit more than the passing game, using the passing game to open up the running game instead of the traditional vice versa.

And so I think we'll continue to see it, but perhaps it just won't look the exact same. Perhaps it'll be more rollouts rather than straight play action, drop back shot passes. Maybe it'll be, you know, fake the play action, throw the screen or something like that to try to increase the yak. But I still think the under center play action will be there. I just think it may look substantially different moving forward. Well, and let me give you an example of why I think that this stuff works so well of being under center. One play where Wentz was under center was when they had Jefferson in the backfield. They run him out in the flat.

He gets 11 yards, but a really nice play design. Part of that play was also having Jordan Mason run the opposite way. So the linebackers were confused. But even with Jefferson in the backfield, the linebacker crashed as if there was a possibility of the ball being handed to Justin. Because that's his assignment. And they're like, all right. And you know this. You linebackers, you're supposed to be very dynamic.

but you also have your keys and your rules. So it's like, got to follow the key. So he ran after Justin Jefferson as if he was going to get a handoff and then he goes into the flat and he's open. I think that under center is so much more to the linebackers and safeties. One of those, hey, red flag, this is a key. They're going to run. They're under center.

And they start to creep. They start to lean. And it just creates better passing lanes. I also think that those rollouts, especially if you have a banged up offensive line, just create more time for those routes to progress. If the quarterback is moving away from the pressure, we saw that on a deep out to the left side of Carson Wentz, where it was like a 15-yard deep out,

but the defensive lines on the other side of the field because it was a play action. So this stuff still works. No matter what year, no matter what era, play action is going to be effective. That's a great stat. And I do think that whether it's Wentz or McCarthy, O'Connell needs to stay with that because it is something that works. Folks, maybe you haven't started your holiday shopping yet,

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because you're playing kind of a murder's row of linebackers. You're playing Jehad Campbell and Zach Bonn of the Eagles. You are playing Deion Henley and then Derwin James, who has basically become, you know, just a weapon on defense. Who knows if he's a safety or a linebacker. He's lining up somewhere for the Chargers. And then Anzolone and Campbell have kind of come along with Detroit. And so when you're facing those three linebackers,

those three groups of linebackers, they're probably not going to bite as much. When we look at bite distance over expected, the guys who are really biting hard on the plays, like the ones that you highlighted with Justin Jefferson, typically those guys are not the names that we think of as the best linebackers in the league. For example, Fred Warner, if you look at a multiple year sample size,

he's not going to bite a ton on these play actions. He's going to stay sound to his rules, but he's going to make sure that he can remain in coverage and play the run as well. Well, that's probably what we will see from these young backers, particularly for the Philadelphia Eagles. And so it'll be interesting to see the kind of mix of play action and how it's huge, particularly because much like they were going up against real great pass rushers in the last two games that we're going to test them. They're now facing really great linebackers in the next couple of games. Can I just say that I love where we're going as a society when we could tell which linebackers take the biggest step forward on a play action play?

these are the details that you dream of getting someone interested in analytics. Let me go to my next one from Sumer Brain. Again, very easy to do. I did it right here on my phone. I just clicked the link and then I signed in and then that was it. So here's my next one. Where does the Vikings defense rank in EPA? So expected points added well blitzing since 2023.

So how effective are these blitzes really? my question and here's the answer. The Vikings defense ranks sixth in EPA per blitz since 2003 and they have amassed the most blitzes and most EPA value since 2023, which I think tells you, Sam, that it's not a myth that Brian Flores and his scheme have elevated this Vikings defense via his aggressiveness. And I also think it's why we're seeing it around the league more and more and more as you watch games. But it's fascinating to be able to kind of put a number on what is this man's scheme doing for the success of this franchise?

And I think that you can see it right there. 100%. And if you look at our Sumer scores, which kind of look at what a player is individually doing, you will see this pop up in the ability of Ivan Pace to log blue chip pass rush scores at the linebacking position. Jonathan Grenard and Andrew Van Ginkle to log these awesome, fantastic pass rush games. And while that's a lot due to their talent, prior to them being on the Vikings, I mean, Ivan Pace was like an undrafted free agent.

Van Gingel was basically let go by the dolphins. Grenard was like kind of a bait and switch with the Texans. So all of those guys kind of were somewhere prior or were unheralded prior. and all of a sudden they're looked at as the best pass rushers in the league at their position. And I think a big part of that is because Brian Flores is putting him in positions where people just don't know how to figure out what they're going to do or when they're going to do it. And I think that's a big part of their success as players, and it proves it in the numbers. I think it also shows you that, well, there is a risk involved in sending five.

And usually that's the way it's defined because Brian. and Flores will kind of get into the ditty gritty of like, well, you know, as a simulated pressure, a blitz and things like that. And then we've gone to footbally, but just the idea of sending extra bodies at the quarterback, I think it's clear that it's worth it. But there will be times, as we see in just the yardage totals that the Vikings allow, there will be times where the opponent is moving the football because they are able to block up some of these blitzes and they'll get some explosive plays against the Vikings, which I wonder and sort of theoretically have wondered if veteran quarterbacks are a little better against this stuff than some of the

young guy. Like think about that EPA number, I don't know, is half of that against Jake Browning and that one half where Isaiah Rogers has two touchdowns? I mean, that was a lot of EPA, man. But I think that they've caused some young quarterbacks and experienced quarterbacks to freak out. But as they go forward in this schedule, the next guy up is Jalen Hertz. I know he's struggling at this time, but you got Justin Herbert after that.

You have Jared Gough after that. And they brought in Javon Hardgrave, Jonathan Allen, and now we've seen the emergence of Jalen Redmond as well, to rush four more often. So do you think, and this maybe you bring in your linebacker experience to this as well, do you think that there's a balance here? Because the numbers are saying, hey, this is the right way to go. But I'm trying to add a little bit of common sense to it and experience watching Stafford and Gough and Aaron Rogers most recently handle some of this stuff better than the Jake Brownings and the Dylan Gabriel's of the world. Yeah. So for the listener's purpose, me and Matthew came up with our prompts completely separate, but they just pair so well together. Because is there a balance was a question that I was wondering as well with regards to the safeties and these disguised type look.

looks. You looked it up from the Blitz perspective. I looked it up from the second half perspective. And I think it tells a really good story about the way that Brian Flores does find balance around here. So I wanted to understand when they gave a middle of the field closed or open look pre-snap, how many times that matched post-snap. And I expected it to be really, really high over the course of this season. And it really turned out in the course of this season, very key here, to really not be high. They're 24th in that kind of disguise deception rate. And I thought to myself, well, that doesn't really make sense.

We hear so much about the crazy stuff that they do. So I broke it down by week. It radically, radically changes per week. And I confirm this with our film superstar, Sean Syed as well. We went deep into the film and analyzed what was going on. And it turns out that week one against the Chicago Bears, They're like, Caleb figured out, buddy, we're going to drop it back. We're going to let you run all over the place.

And this game is yours to win. Of course, it didn't end up going Caleb Williams way. But however you look at the Cincinnati Bengals, the deception rate was 33%. So every third play, something was changing for Jake Browning. And as you said, that leads to a massive negative EPA for them. They confuse the crap out of them. They're getting turnovers. All this crazy stuff is going on.

goes back to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Aaron Rogers, not a high time to throw guy, not a high A dot guy. He's going to make his read pre-snap and he's going to get it off. As a result, very low again. But then you go to the Cleveland Browns, very high again. So not only is this a balanced thing for the Minnesota Vikings, this is a game plan thing. And offensive play callers go into the game,

not really knowing what Brian Flores and that crew, which has been there for a couple of years and knows what they're doing and understands the scheme. They don't really know what they're going to do. And I think that's why we kind of see this massive difference in expected points added, racked up by the defense between the Vikings and everyone else, because there's basically a quarter, a quarter and a half where you're just having to figure out what the flavor of the day is for Brian Flores and that defense. I also think that Rogers got the ball out so fast on some plays. He did something we never, see anymore in the NFL, which is just, hey, we're actually running a run play, but there's

one receiver who if I decide, I'm going to throw you the ball. I'm going to do it. That was an old far thing that I just have not seen used. And here is, of course, Aaron Rogers pulls it out, because there were a few plays where every other player, including the receivers, is running a run play. And he just snaps it and goes, DK. So not even allowing Flores to get into that stuff. I also think some of some element of it is number 22. Harrison Smith coming back against Cincinnati, that's where he's going to be the one that is directing a lot of that stuff, whereas Theo Jackson, I mean, Josh Mattelis can do it,

but it's not the same as having Harrison Smith, who loves to line up at the line of scrimmage, last minute, drop back, make a check with somebody out. I mean, it's very impressive stuff, but it's harder to do unless you have him, the superstar, the Hall of Fame caliber player operating it. Well, this that I got my other one from Sumer Brain, my other search. Let me read it.

Also plays into Brian Flores' defense because if there has been a weakness this year, it has been stopping the run. And something I noticed that I wanted to bring up, and I don't think that I did on any other show because I hadn't looked at all the all 22 yet, is that they've been giving up some explosives by just missing tackles. Just like we've sort of blamed it on how they let Harrison Phillips go and the D. line. Some of that's been true, but a lot of it's just been guys not rallying and not getting to their spot and then missing a tackle. And I think that's Blake Cashman and Van Ginkle being missed here. So here was what I typed in to Sumer Brain. Where do the Vikings rank this year in EPA against the run? Again, expected points added. The Vikings are currently 27th an EPA against the run with an EPA per run play of 0.054, which you can contextualize the Vikings

defense performing significantly worse than league average, which certainly matches the eye test. But here's my question for you, Mr. Data Scientist. How much does it matter? Because when I tweeted something about the Vikings run defense struggling and so forth, but their team defense EPA being through the roof, my friend Cody Alexander, who runs match quarters, brilliant defensive mind, he said, this is by design. Like, this is what they, not that they want to be 27th in EPA. but they want to be allowing

190 yards passing per game and if you're going to run all day well I guess then you're going to have to run all day to make this work so how much does it matter that the Vikings are not at this moment a good run defense it it matters

but we have seen teams number one like you said by design do this and number two be able to manage this and I think the real place where this shows up that designates that this team is not just allowing people to kill them by a thousand cuts is in terms of their all around success rate. They are top 10 in all around success rate. So basically what that means is

is that they're really getting after it in terms of turnovers in the passing game. But they're also limiting other team's ability to really get ahead of the sticks or ahead of the chains in the passing game as well in that, yeah, sure, you know, they're first in EPA per play, but nice and success rate, they'll let you get three or four yards a carry. But this is National Football League. I mean, you can't just putt put it all the way down the field all the time. And especially against an offense that likes to remain explosive,

we discussed how they use under center play action. They have one of the best wide receivers and one of the best tight ends and a running back who's performing extremely highly right now. When you're having to try to match that type of, you know, three and four yard offense with an offense on the other side, that is going to be generating explosive plays, it's very difficult. So I agree with Cody.

I think this is by design. I think they'd love to shore up the rush stop a little bit more. But at the end of the day, the number one thing that you have to do in Nashville, Football League, is stop the pass. And I think that they're focused on doing that on all three levels, and that is going to continue to be the focus

as we continue moving on through the season. Yeah, I agree. And I don't think that it's okay. especially with the teams in your division, Josh Jacobs, Jemir Gibbs. I don't think it's okay to get crushed in the run game because those teams will actually stick with it. They'll make it matter.

Philadelphia will do that too. Unfortunately, the Chargers lost O'Mary in Hampton, who was a fun player to watch. So I don't know if the Chargers will be able to run the ball against them, but the Ravens are getting Lamar back. You know that they're going to put up a good fight on the ground. So you can't be horrible. But if you can sort of lull a team like they did against Cleveland,

into, oh, we're succeeding in the run. We need to keep running and running. And then Cleveland ran into a brick wall in the fourth quarter in some really big moments for them and gave the Vikings an opportunity to win the game. But I really think that they just, they need their players back. They need Harrison Smith out there for 60 snaps. They need cashmen. I mean, it was so clear how bad they were missing cashman. But also, Theo Jackson is kind of a deep safety playmaker.

And he had some opportunities that he couldn't get into his gap and make a play. So that is going to matter for where they go with this. But I think if you struggle this much against Detroit, they will get 200 yards for Jemir Gibbs and say, this is fine. We'll take this. And then they'll run play actions off it. So what is your, have you done three or two?

What's your last one? Yeah. So my final one has to do with the matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles. And right now, the Philadelphia Eagles, only offense that is being generated at all is really being generated with Jalen hurts his legs. Yeah. And so I wanted to understand what the scramble rate against this Minnesota Vikings

offense was. I went ahead and asked Sumer Brain, what is the Minnesota Viking scramble rate? How does it rank amongst NFL teams? And they currently are allowing the 19th highest scramble rate, which means there's not a lot of quarterback scrambling going on. Now, you got to go back and look at the quarterbacks that they played. Aaron Rogers really isn't going to scramble. Michael Pennix isn't going to scramble.

So it's interesting to think that they haven't necessarily. faced a quarterback other than maybe Caleb Williams, who has the scramble ability of Jalen Hertz. So I'm really interested in what the defense, especially given all the discussion of how it changes on a game-by-game basis, is going to look like against Jailen Hertz. Because right now the Philadelphia Eagles run game is not looking great. They have not been able to run the ball. Maybe they look at the situation, the Vikings look at the situation, say, okay, let's see, let's see if Sequin can really get it going against us, but they've also not been passing it super great. And so maybe this is a chance to get Jalen Hertz into the Jalen Hertz we saw two or

three years ago and forced some turnovers. But I think the real thing that has killed the Cowboys and it's really kept the Eagles afloat is Jalen Hurts ability to scramble. And if they can keep that scramble rate low and kind of contain a little bit more, I wonder if that really hamstrings the Philadelphia Eagles offense. No, this is a great point. And we saw Caleb Williams run all over the place in week one against them. And there hasn't been anybody since. Rogers tried it once, got stripped, and Dylan Gabriel almost got a first down running one time. And he was tackled and that was it.

But he's not really a big time runner. There are very few guys who can run the football as well as Jalen Hertz ever in NFL history. There's maybe 10. And that is a very unique challenge for them. I think they have the tacklers to do it. The guys, although Blake Cashman, got hurt chasing down Caleb Williams. But do you have, when you blitz, if you miss, do you have extra area, just extra space

out there to get one-on-one or to get the extra, you know, just yardage running for someone like Jalen Hertz? He's also not a really fun guy to tackle. He's kind of violent. I mean, I remember, you know, he had to face, think about how funny this is. The guy wins the Super Bowl and everything. At the combine, I remember him being asked, like, would he? workout as a running back or something. And he's a Super Bowl winning quarterback now.

But I also thought that spoke to his ability, which is different from Lamar, where he likes to run you over. And, you know, for the Vikings tackling in the secondary, Isaiah Rogers, Byron Murphy, you know, Harrison Smith at his age, I think that he's going to test them. But if they can't throw the ball, then, I mean, I don't think they're going anywhere. If they can't run with Saquan and they can't throw the ball. But it's two weeks from now. So that's where I wonder, like, how if they're going to get some things resolved. Because usually teams that are capable of winning the Super Bowl, when they have some small sample size problems, they start to figure those things out. Definitely.

And I think the stat to watch as the game goes on is the success rate of the Philadelphia Eagles. I mean, they've been able, for the most part, to limit turnovers. But the Philadelphia Eagles bread and butter right now is getting in the third and four or fourth and one. Because as soon as they do that, it's 100% go rate and it's 100% success rate. The tush push is coming out. And so that's basically what is keeping this offense afloat. It does not look like the offense that was maintaining those explosive plays last year or two years ago when they were throwing the ball all around the yard.

And so the question remains is given that that seems kind of like the Vikings' weakness to a certain degree right now, If they're able to run the ball a little bit, if Jalen Hertz is able to scramble, if they're able to get in a lot of third, fourth, and short, this game may go to the Philadelphia Eagles way. However, if the Vikings are able to do what they do best and force turnovers, then that's a completely different challenge

than the Eagles have seen thus far. Boy, this has been a lot of fun. Playing with Sumer, I mean, you just hand me a new analytics tool and I'm going to get a lot of entertainment out of it. So I've really enjoyed this. I also, so I encourage people to go over, to check it out on the Sumer Sports. Twitter has put it out there, Sumer, S-U-M-E-R brain and, you know, make your own data just

like that. But I do want to get a few more football takes from you, Sam, if that's okay. Well, I've got you here. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, well, let's start out with this one. So on Fanduel right now, the Vikings are plus 260 to make the playoffs. Another team that is plus 260 is the Dallas Cowboys. That's the closest comparison in the NFC to the Vikings.

Vikings. Now, I know that this answer is going to start with, well, who's playing quarterback and where's that going to go? But plus 260 means they're not favored to make the playoffs at this moment. How are you feeling about the Vikings' odds to make the postseason? I still am going to ride with the Vikings. I think that the Packers are a little bit more flawed than people think. And that's me who was extremely high on them prior to the Mike Parsons acquisition as well. I do think the Detroit Lions have shown themselves. to be the class of the NFC North at this point. But when you have a defense that is operating at this high level

and you have a tackle in Derasol that you can believe in, you have Justin Jefferson that you can believe in, and a run game that's coming along that you can kind of believe in as well, I think it's just a lot of factors that come together and end up being just very useful for a team to win over time. And I think as they get some of these things ironed out, It is going to be down to J.J. McCarthy, and it is going to be down to Carson Wentz. But we've already started to see those adjustments come.

I still think the Minnesota Vikings will end up making the playoffs. And I think it'll be a similar kind of stack up as it ended up being with three NFC North teams in the playoffs as it was last year. I'm going to say at this moment, I have no idea. Because I really, I really just don't know if I have a feel who they're going to be. I think I have a feel for who they're going to be if Carson Wentz plays and how they're going to have to win. I don't know what J.J. McCarthy could be if they go back to him. I think the ceiling is higher, but I think the floor is lower because of just inexperience. I think it could be a much rockier ride that gets them to the playoffs.

It could be a much rockier ride that ends with seven wins if they go with J.J. McCarthy. So there's a big gap there that I just don't have a good sense for. And I think that Dallas is kind of sneaking up on some people who just decided that all the drama meant that they were going to be horrible, which they're not good. but Dack Prescott's still good. They got him some good wide receivers. I think they're the most entertaining team in the league, Dallas. But I mean, I think if you're betting on one of those two teams,

you probably lean slightly toward the Vikings because of their defense. But the NFC, man, it's got a lot of these teams that are, hey, I would project them to win nine or ten games. Seattle, right? I mean, San Francisco, I still don't think San Francisco with all their injuries is going to sustain this level of success. I think this, to me, screams final week of the season. There's four teams buying for one spot.

That certainly checks out. And I think the real difference is going to be, can the Seattle Seahawks keep it up? And we kind of saw the reason why Sam Donald is no longer on the Vikings for better or worse at the end of that Seahawks' Bucks game, where he plays well all game. And we've seen him be very consistent. We haven't seen him have an excellent, excellent game or even really. be asked to do a lot by Clint Kubiak in that Seahawks offense. But then all of a sudden the Sam Darnel comes out where he's throwing it to God knows where it bounces off an offensive

line in its helmet and all of a sudden it's a pick. And so I think we're going to have to maintain a level of scrutiny on that Seahawks team, given that that's probably the one that I think is the most likely to bounce someone out. Other than that, it seems kind of chalk to last year. I don't trust anyone in the NFC South other than the Buccaneers. And in the NFC, the East, I like the Eagles and the Commanders, I love the Cowboys to watch. Do I love the Cowboys to win a lot of games? Not really. Like, the defense is not good.

I don't know if it could have, I personally, the data shows that it probably could have been saved by Michael Parsons. But Dak Prescott is performing at an MVP level. I mean, Florinoi had 145 yards or whatever last week. Like, he's just making it happen at the same level that we saw two years ago. So I love watching the down. Cowboys. And I like they're over from the preseason, which I think is like seven to a half. But I don't really know if they're going to be like a true 10, 11, 12 win team this year. Well, the great part of this too is the Vikings play these teams. So they're going to

play Dallas. They're going to play Seattle. And they better hope that their loss to Atlanta doesn't end up coming back to bite them in the final days of the season. Let me throw this one. This is kind of interesting. The MVP award. odds on Fanduil right now. Josh Allen number one at plus 135. Second is actually Patrick Mahomes at plus 470. I still think Kansas City gets it together.

I don't know if together enough to win MVP. After that, listen to these three names or four names after that for MVP favorites from Fandul. Baker Mayfield at plus 950, Jordan Love at plus 1,200, Jared Goff at plus 1,400, and Matthew Stafford at plus 1,400. We live in a world in 2025 where Baker, Mayfield, Jordan Love, Jared Gough, Matthew Stafford are all favorites to win the MVP. What do you make of that?

I am very surprised. And then I also want to highlight something that I picked up on when I looked at these MVP odds over the weeks, which is that people are talking about how we're not developing quarterbacks the same way and how, you know, we haven't seen a good trickle of. of quarterbacks year over year we've never seen that i mean you go through the those list of guys like five of them are from the same draft class it's like completely random there was one extremely good draft class justin herbert was up here a couple weeks ago as well uh and and it's kind of just how it goes but as much as i am saying that i don't think cowboys are going to make the playoffs like the value here is dac prescott yeah the the level that he is playing at and how deep he is in these rankings like if they go nine and eight or something like that and miss the playoffs but he's

the reason they won nine games i wonder if it doesn't start looking like the josh allen year where all of a sudden he got votes despite them not being that good i think josh allen is the leader for one reason one reason only and that's because strength of schedule yeah they they take a little bit of a hit against the patriots last game it was a weird game with three turnovers and stuff like that but i think there's a real chance the bubble of those just roll over the rest of the AFC East and their record looks great and Josh Allen continues to play great and thus he's the MVP. So it's kind of hard to go against him right now. But all of these good quarterback play is fun. Like I like turning on the TV and seeing good quarterback play. I like

watching Trevor Lawrence get a little frisky on a Monday night against the KC defense. So I'm never rooting for bad quarterback play and it's good to see all these guys that are kind of crumbled up at the top right now of the MVP ladder. But I totally agree with you that, I mean, most things just in the world where people claim they're new, there's some version of something before. Like, if you listen to pop music, I've heard a lot of the songs somewhere in another decade, but, you know, it's just a different repackaging. It's kind of like that right now, where in the early 2000s, there were a lot of quarterbacks in their late 20s or 30s that sort of popped up, like whether it was Kurt Warner coming into the league in his late 20s or

Jeff George having a great season or Rich Gannon, like that kind of happened a lot then. And and it's sort of happening a lot now. And maybe that's the complexity and dominance of defenses that it's taking longer for these guys to be ready. This is a little like wink, wink, nod, about, hey, if they don't play J.J. McCarthy right away, KOC's not a crazy person. But I do think that's a trend.

I'll just throw a couple out there for you. Well, on Fandul, Dak Prescott, plus 1,700's a pretty good one. I'll give you a deep one that I think has a chance. Like how far on this list for MVPs can I go until I find what like, all right, we're getting to Bo Nix? That's not happening. But how about Drake May at plus 3,300 on this list? If let's just say the Patriots get blazing hot, they win 11 or 12 games and this dude

puts up crazy numbers, I think that the emergence of a young quarterback is super exciting and we'll get talked about a ton. It's a franchise that people love to talk about. It's a market people love to talk about. And I don't think he's going to be consistent enough to win the MVP. But some of these guys ahead of him, Daniel Jones is ahead of it. Come on, be serious. Like, I love what Daniel Jones is doing, but be serious.

So I like, and the other one is Jaden Daniels is plus 3,300 to win as well. But I like for a very deep cut MVP, Drake May. Dreg May is currently eighth in EPA per play. He's currently ninth in success rate. And you really start packaging these things together, unlike the Daniel Jones and the Sam Darnels, who are also in this tier, he's being asked to do everything in that offense.

And in fact, given their turnovers, especially from the running back position, he's being asked to overcome things, not just being asked to do it on the baseline. He's being asked to overcome things. So I've really loved the development of him. The question just is, is can to keep it up? And that's the same question that we were asking at North Carolina his junior year, North Carolina, his final year. And the question we've

been asking the last couple of weeks, it looked great against the Buffalo Bills. I'm rooting for him. I hope it starts looking better and better and better. All right. Last one is the bills are plus 500 is the favorites to win the Super Bowl. Who is, let's do it the same way. Like, for a Super Bowl team, how I'll give you the list here, how deep, actually, actually, tell me when to stop. I'm going to read them and you tell me like the farthest that you're willing to go for a team to still be considered a Super Bowl favorite. Okay. So Buffalo, Philadelphia, Detroit, Green Bay, Kansas City. Baltimore is still being there at plus 1600s a little bit awkward, but that's not, that's not the game. Uh, Los Angeles Chargers,

Los Angeles Rams, Indianapolis Colts, San Francisco. Okay, that's as far as Joe. That's the cutoff. Okay, that's the cutoff. I think that that's fair. I mean, it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the entire world if the Colts roster was just so freaking good. But I also think we're going to have to give that a little bit of time. So everybody else before that, you're more or less saying, deserves to be in the discussion.

I think so. And I think there's like a couple dirty secrets about the way the schedule has been set up. Thus far, you mentioned one about how the NFC East has to play the NFC North and both of them have to play the AFC North as well. Like, those are all going to be tough games to win in October and November. And there's a real chance that a team like the Ravens or a team like the Vikings or a team like the Cowboys could be like a 9-10 win team and actually be one of the better teams in the NFL just because of the strength of their schedule and because those three divisions that are typically tough, particularly as the season goes on, are just knocking each other out. And so I think that's why I'm still willing to thank the Ravens. Before the season, I was Lions Ravens with the kind of caveat on Packers Ravens.

I'm going to drop the Ravens down. I think that the Chiefs are probably the best team in the AFC that I've seen thus far. That being said, like, is Jacksonville cursed? Like, what happened in that game? I still can't really explain it. But I think they're still probably the best team. And so I think once you start getting the Chargers and the Rams, you consider making the line there. The Chargers are just so injured.

I mean, it's like ridiculous. And we talked about that on the Sumer Sports Show today, which you can find on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Like replacing two tackles and no one knows it better than Vikings fans is literally impossible. They traded for Cam Robinson last year. The Browns also traded with Cam Robinson this year. Like, it's not going to work out. when you're getting guys like that. And so at some point, the Piper has to be paid.

I think that's coming for the Chargers, even though we've seen Justin Herbert and that defense do it year after year. So I think the Chargers and the Rams, you could kind of draw the line right there, but I think you can kind of bring them in just because they have really high-level quarterbacks and really high-level players.

Once you get to the Colts, I think there's a major, major drop-off as you go below there. The sneaky team that I think is not crazy to bring up here. Well, I just said Drake May, for MVP, so I guess if you could throw the Patriots, I was going to throw the Texans into the mix here. I, because

when you look at who they have at their defensive end positions, when you get into those playoff games, we saw it last year where Philadelphia, they were flawed down the stretch. I know they won a lot of games, but they were a little banged up and Hertz is banged up. They get into the playoffs and their defensive

line just kills everyone. And if the Texans can get it together with their offensive line, which they did a little bit last week against the bad Ravens defensive line. But if they get it together, Stroud is still a very skilled quarterback. They still have good weapons. And I think they have a defense that is as talented as anybody in the league. I'm not saying they're going to win the Super Bowl.

I'm saying that they could push themselves into that conversation for me in terms of teams that are not quite there yet. Like they have the quarterback talent and they have the defensive skill as well. Yeah, I think there's a class of teams. that have that and it's the Texans the Seahawks whose defense has been really good this year basically until last week again a juggernaut like a really really good buccaneers offense and then the buccaneers are kind of the third team in there where they have a true full deck on offense especially when they get Lou Gecki back and the wide receivers back they're going to have

three premium wide receivers two premium running backs a quarterback who's hot and then two premium tackles. It's an offense that's going to have to be reckoned with. Plus, you add in a very confusing defensive scheme that can get pressure with Hassan Reddick, Yaya Diabi, Vita Vaya, and Antoine Winfield, who's been performing at an all-pro level back to that level. I think those are the three teams that are kind of on the bubble that I would actually probably put above the Colts and the 49ers would be those three teams. And the Vikings, honestly, if they can figure out the quarterback position are up there too. I think you can put

those kind of four teams and maybe the Denver Broncos as well all together and like have a glaring, glaring issue but they have a full deck everywhere else. Tampa Bay plus 2,700 might be the best or Houston plus

4,000. I think either one of those would make a lot of sense over there on Fandul. Sam Brookhouse, data scientist at Sumer Sports. Man, Sumer Brain is a lot of fun. Go play with it. It's free to sign up. So it doesn't cost you anything to go check that out. And we had a lot of fun with it today. I think we did actually shine a lot of light on who the Minnesota Vikings are

and who they need to be going forward. So as you know, love your work. You are always welcome back on this show. And I'm sure that will happen again very soon. Sam, great stuff. Great to have you again, man. Appreciate it all the time. Appreciate it. Football. Oh, football. Thank you. Thank you.