Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What does the Football Outsiders almanac say about the Vikings' NFC East opponents?

Episode Date: July 17, 2022

Rivers McCown, who wrote two of the NFC East chapters for the Football Outsiders Almanac, joins Matthew Coller to talk about how the Vikings match up with the Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Commanders, New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. Are the Eagles really ready to win? Is Washington's coaching part of the reason not to take them seriously? Are the Giants the most likely team to surprise us? Is Dallas still as strong as last year? Will the Vikings win these games? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and our next guest is making a return to the show. But this time, he will not be tortured by talking about the team that he writes about. Rivers McCown, normally you come on here to talk about the Texans, and you leave a trail of woe after we talk. However, this time, for Football Outsiders, the Football Outsiders Almanac, you have written the chapter on the NFC East, which has had a lot of woe, but you don't care as much about it. So we're going to talk about these Vikings matchups with the NFC East. How are you, sir? I'm glad to be talking about real football for once. Yes, I will say i only wrote two of the nfc chapters this year

but i have been covering them for divisional stuff so yeah we're all good talking about all the teams i'll say right by the browns for some reason i don't know what what they did this offseason so i wrote that chapter too well they made you continue to talk about the deshaun watson so uh situation which just gets like weirder and worse for the Houston Texans as they settle some lawsuits and so forth. But you will not be forced to discuss that because we're going to go through these NFC East. Yes, these NFC East matchups that the Vikings have on their plates this year. And if I make fun of the Texans on the way I do not apologize for anything so let's start off with the the Philadelphia Eagles though that the Vikings face in week two I it feels like the

Philadelphia Eagles are sort of a a sexy pick if you will rivers for people talking about who's going to win the NFC East and a team that I think has really well handled their own timeline. Like they sort of understood when it was over with Doug Peterson and they stacked up draft picks and then decided like we're kind of on the cusp of being a legitimate contender. So now let's trade a first round pick. That is my perception of the Philadelphia Eagles. What is yours?

Yeah, you know, those numbers are pretty high on them. I think Dallas is above them at this point still, because our numbers actually think that Dallas was underrated last year. They finished number one in DVLA. But yeah, I do think the Eagles have made a big step forward. To me personally, I'm kind of at the point where I'm like, this kind of feels like last year's Chargers were like, like one step ahead of the horse here.

Let's see what Jalen Hurts can actually do. But I do think that they will be like an actual NFC playoff contender this year. When it comes to Jalen Hurts, I mean, it kind of just starts there because if you were to take a very good quarterback and plop it on this roster, the way Devontae Smith played last year, the offensive line, the running game, and then you add A.J. Brown to this mix. It just feels like this could be a Super Bowl team. But the Jalen Hurts thing, we do have to remember that in the hot run that they had to get into the playoffs, they really lucked into a lot of easy games. And I guess I wonder where you stand on that,

like how much we have to factor that as we have appreciation for jalen hurts and try to uh but also try to project him for the future you know i think when it comes to jalen hurts i'm willing to overlook the playoff game which was a disaster to the point of giving him a chance this year but what he showed in that playoff game would really scare me if i were an eagles fan if i were like rooting fan, if I were rooting for them, if I were putting that money on them to go anywhere. I do think they're going to try to be more pass-focused this year, which that's obviously something good in the vacuum.

If Hurts can't actually get there, are they going to go back to the run team or not? I don't know. But, yeah, I think pretty much as you said and as most people can say at this point what the season becomes for the eagles is pretty much all on jail and hurts right and i guess i don't know whether he's good or not i mean when they drafted him it was one of those where you try to throw out kind of how you felt at the time and not let that color what you think now about somebody but i loved the draft pick at the time and not let that color what you think now about somebody

but i loved the draft pick at the time it's like why not take a swing at somebody who really handled that to a situation extremely well came back to oklahoma lit it up runs a four or five just you know is a dynamic player but also recognizing that there are flaws in this man's passing game and it's not necessarily, can he hit an open receiver? It's can he really play quarterback, go through the progressions and hit the right receivers? And I think you saw some of that in the playoff game where it just wasn't there when he was forced to be kind of more of a true quarterback.

And I, you know, they dared him to throw an entire game. But you also don't want to do the thing where you're like, can he really, like the Lamar thing, can he really throw that pigskin? But it's actually true in the case of Jalen Hurts, where it's like there's percentage points to this that I think he has to get to another level in order to have them being a legitimate contender. Yeah, I'll say this about him.

There are players who, you know, second year, they come in and don't really improve like, you know. Hurts actually took some noticeable steps forward last year. I feel like he's done that pretty much every year for the last couple, including in college. So, I mean, we talk about how he can't do this, he can't do that. But whenever somebody is still improving, is still showing signs of improvement, I'm a little more loathe to jump on the, oh, he can't do it. He can't do it.

It's over. It's done. If it were like, say, Kirk Cousins, I totally get it. But this is not Kirk Cousins. This is somebody who is, you know, 25 or 26. Right. And the leadership element of it, it does seem that people kind of gravitate to him and want to follow him. And I don't want to dismiss something like that,

even though we're talking about, you know, the analytics book of the football outsiders almanac. But I think when you have somebody on a rookie quarterback contract and you've been able to spend as much as they have and put as much as there is around him, it's kind of like if a guy can make plays and a guy can lead then you've got a chance to succeed there because they've put so much around him i mean i can't remember the guy's name who was the guy that was second in receptions for receivers for them it was like quez watkins or somebody i've never heard of that was behind yeah yeah behind behind davante smith so I I think that I mean I'm not

saying that it's like underappreciated because everyone has talked about this Eagles team improving but it's almost underappreciated when we look at how Hurts threw the ball that he had one receiver and that one receiver was a rookie and that was about it yeah I mean he had Dallas Goddard too of of course. But yeah, I know what you're saying, of course. And this year, we got A.J. Brown in there, who is an obvious improvement. You've got Zach Paschal, who can kind of catch them over the middle, be a nice little soft position guy, kind of fits that big slot mold. He can even do some blocking, which could help them with that.

And then, of course, if Hurst doesn't work out for whatever reason I don't think there's you can say that there's a team probably as well positioned as far as talent on the roster and draft capital to go get whoever they need or they could be the team that says Tom Brady one more year come here instead right I mean but there's there's it seems like there's always that in the future. And the Eagles have set themselves up so well. Like what do you think that they did specifically to get them to this point that I guess was like the best thing they did.

And I think of this through a Vikings lens, of course, it just really seemed to me like they played that draft pick game really smart and did not spend stupid money on certain veterans to make sure they stayed around, but also did keep the ones that they thought projected to be good for a couple of future years. I'm not saying they did everything perfectly, but it does seem like they really managed the timeline thing better than most teams. I think you can tell a tale about two organizations in this division by the last two Carson Wentz trades. One team got a first round pick out of this somehow, even after a disastrous season in which, you know, people wanted to make excuses for it, but it was pretty clear that he did not look very good. And then this year, the Colts were like, well, I don't know.

Let's bury this guy in public. And they go to Washington, and Washington's like, sure, two-thirds? Why not? Makes perfect sense. Who cares about what the quarterback market could have fucking made? Yeah, right. You wind up with just a know a couple disastrous trades for carson winston the eagles come out of this with a first round pick a second round pick

they can trade whoever they want they you know they have they they're very good at keeping flexibility and uh liquid assets now here's a question though about them i i know that when a coach comes in his first year and makes the playoffs, we just decide that he's really great at his job and he's wonderful and there's no other questions. But I don't really know. Like, how do we judge if it was for real with Nick Sirianni and there's something there and he can, like, take this team in a different place

or if it was just kind of like one of those years where some things fell right for them to, again, barely make the playoffs. I mean, we sort of acted like they were an incredible team. They made the playoffs by one game. Yeah, I remember the last time that I thought about a coach getting this kind of hype, this kind of buzz off of, you know, an easy schedule and a lot of good running games. It was Bill O'Brien.

So that doesn't really draw a lot of positive praise from me. I'm also kind of concerned about the defensive coordinator, Jonathan Gannon. He played extremely vanilla last year. They've got talent that he can do that and kind of get away with it. But when you get into games against Tom Brady in the playoffs, you can't just be like, oh, we'll just play cover two. I'm sure he's never seen that before be like, Oh, we'll just play cover too.

I'm sure he's never seen that before. So yeah, it was very odd for me. Yeah, no, it was very odd. And then like, he was getting head coaching interviews. Like,

am I taking crazy pills here? Like they had, they had the most vanilla defense in the league. And I think there's even like numbers to back this up that really show that they did not mix their defense up. And then it's like head coach candidate guy who doesn't really change things. Yeah. Very, very strange. But I think that those things probably hold them back from being a legit Superbowl contender that if they don't improve how much they switch up their defense, where the best defenses I think are the most deceptive in the league. And then if Jalen hurts is still kind of the same guy and doesn't take the big steps

I think you're talking about being the team that's nine and eight this year and then you end up in a very difficult situation with Jalen Hurts but that one would kind of remind me of like I don't know it's like is that like a Tyrod Taylor in Buffalo where the guy is like pretty good and can run around and make some plays, but there's just better things in this world. I think, I think that would be kind of be similar where they had a good roster and they were kind of ready to win,

but he just wasn't enough. And they brought in the big receiver and Sammy Watkins. Yeah. Yeah. No, I see what you're going with that for sure. The Eagles have, the Eagles have a lot of,

of how can I put this there's always like a set appeal and when you're doing the predictions game of being the guy who's ahead of the curve being oh well the eagles are like on their way they're going to get there this year i don't i would pump the brakes on this year i'm not that blown away by that roster yet but i do think they're on a good battle. All right. Before we go to, to the next team that we talk about in the NFC East, I think the thing that's appropriate since you have the most backup

quarterback journeyman name is to talk about our favorite backup or journeyman quarterback for the each team. So for me, that begins with Coy Detmer for the Philadelphia Eagles, for me that begins with coy detmer for the philadelphia eagles a guy who i once i once heard a great story about coy detmer that one of the reasons they kept him on the roster was that he was the kicker's favorite for holding the field goals and so the kicker demanded it was i think it was david acres so he demanded that he had coy detmer holding the field goals and you remember like dav Akers was really good.

And Coy Detmer had his moments, I think. And then there was Ty Detmer. There was. There were many Detmers over the years, weren't there? I guess with the Eagles, I always think of Jeff Garcia there. I don't know why. It's like the one stop that makes no sense for him to think about. But, but man, Jeff Garcia, that was an Eagle right there. Jeff Garcia,

Eagle. And then if I recall, it was like Jeff Garcia is just totally washed and like he's done whatever. And then was it Vic got hurt or someone got hurt and Garcia goes in and wins a bunch of games is nice story. And good for you, Jeff Garcia.

I would, I would toss in Rodney Peet defeating the Barry Sanders Detroit Lions in the playoffs when Scott Mitchell threw like six interceptions. Throw Rodney Peet's name out there. Throw some respect on Rodney Peet. Let's go. Throw some respect on Rodney Peet. Okay, let's move on to the next team.

But I like it. I like our names there. Let's talk about the – actually, should I do this in order of who they play? Nah, who cares. Let's talk about the Commanders because they command our attention these days with their tremendous team name. The Carson Wentz thing, you jest about the Carson Wentz thing. But let's even just say that Carson Wentz is an average quarterback

and they have a good roster and they have a competent coach. I'm not saying he's a great coach, but I'd say that Ron Rivera knows what he's doing in the NFL. Like, can they win like 10 games? I mean, if you can win seven with Taylor Heineke, who's just atrocious, can you win 10 with Carson Wentz? I mean, the thing about this division is it's so poor, like top to bottom as far as quality, as far as like how our projections go.

But yeah, I mean, 10 wins, 10 and seven, that's not even really a big stretch anymore. I do think that the commanders are going to have a problem here, which is while we did a lot of research on the Almanac about how third down defense as bad as that was last year tends to regress to the mean we also did that research and then pointed out hey teams that actually regressed back to the mean did make some changes and they're just like jack del rio back chase young back maybe we don know yet. We'll figure that out later.

Everybody else on the team from last year, back. They changed almost nothing. All they're doing is relying on the same youth guys they were last year, and then they threw in Filderian Mathis in the second round. So that's an area where I would be pretty concerned. And the Jack Del Rio thing, you know, he's obviously not great at tweeting and really not good at press conferences these days, and it costs him a lot of money to be that way. But I also don't think he's very good at defensive coordinating

because when you compare the names of the players on that defense, and usually what I say, and I think you'd agree with this from covering the league, is just like it's usually the talent I mean how much talent do you have on your roster equals how well you play but I will make exceptions to the rule for old clueless former middle linebackers for the Vikings who can't maximize that talent that I think that you can hurt yourself on defense schematically and play calling wise if you're not good at it and i mean rob ryan would make this case pretty strong for me that he could hold back any defense so i think that that is a major concern i also think that like there is a level of distraction of that

franchise of just existing that i think it does hurt them in the fact that like their owner is on a yacht trying to avoid an indictment or whatever. I do think that permeates people and their attitudes toward things. And it's a thin margin to win. I think that makes things difficult. We were trying to write about, you know, these sorts of things at the Almanac this year. And I basically got to the point where

I was like, what I'll do is I'll put in something like, hey, even as we were writing this Almanac, more things kept coming about Daniel Snyder, about this, about Jack Del Rio. Even though we did that and we weren't about that, it's still happening. It doesn't really matter

how you try to couch that. This is just an ongoing situation. I will say about Del Rio, as you were talking about coaches that can hold back you, I think what came to mind first for me was Matt Patricia, as we were, you know, getting into your NFC North roots and just, you know, hearing stories about teams running the same play on them over and over

again, and them not changing anything, not, not really trying to adapt at all and yeah when you have a coach that uh is stagnant that that that's when you're in danger in the nfl look at how kirk cousins performed against the lions when patricia was there they just ran boots all day against cover one and like it was just okay let justin jefferson one-on-one coverage with some backup corner that seems like a great idea but over and over and over and over again and i think that's problematic for them it but that that's where i i kind of run into this like i think when i look at what they have on the roster and if it was the old madden games they used to

actually have a difference between the good and the bad teams you would give their roster ratings like pretty high numbers but i don't believe in some of the other stuff and i also just don't buy into the idea that there's ever a world where we go back to carson wentz from what he was in his very first impression in the league which is you know playing at an mvp level for the philadelphia eagles if that's a roster so good that Nick Foles can win the Super Bowl with it, then that is an outlier. You're just never going to find that. I think Terry McLaurin's a good player. I question the other receivers that they have.

I think they have a good offensive line. I think they have a decent offensive coordinator, but I just cannot get around to anything other than Carson Wentz being what he has been since then, which is essentially like a nine and seven type quarterback. Yeah, I would argue he was worse last year. I think he was really, really bad. I think the best way I can describe this is that if you go on YouTube

and look up Carson Wentz left-handed passes, there is a two-minute montage of just this Colts here, of him just like throwing weird crap on the wall. And, you know, far be it for me to tell anybody I don't play quarterback. I'm just, you know, not even good enough to play in high school, really. But when I watch Carson Wentz play football, it feels like, you know, watching like a bad stand-up comic, try out new material, and just bomb over and over again.

Yeah, I think the most optimistic way to look at Wentz would be to say that he can actually get the ball downfield if they want to try to push downfield, unlike Taylor heineken who just does not have the physical tools but the number of goofy and insane throws by carson wentz uh is just way too high for me to believe that they can even win this division and i think that for the last couple years there's sort of been the like oh washington everybody keep an eye on them like you talk about the prognosticators trying to, you know, be the one that picks the team that's surprising or something. I just, I cannot, I cannot get around on them. Now they have a myriad of wonderful journeymen and backup quarterback

history. Oh boy. So I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to go with a, with a show classic, which is Jeff George in the Jeff George era in D.C., which was horrendous. Like couldn't have been worse. He played like three games and they cut him in the middle of the season, I think.

Boy, there were two names that came to mind when you brought this up. I don't know if Danny Werfel counts. I think he might have been like a starter for too long. 100% counts. That was he might have been like a starter for too long. 100% counts. That was, that was a major back of quarterback. And then there was that one year where Todd Collins won like six or seven games for them.

And they made the playoffs and he started in the playoffs. What an abomination of justice. What a time to be alive because so I, so I grew up in Buffalo and todd collins was taking over for jim kelly and they had drafted him out of michigan and they were like oh this big arm quarterback he's six five and he's gonna be the next kelly which you know good luck with all that and so he takes over they start him in 97 and he is just awful. And then he becomes a backup because then they went to Doug Flutie and Rob Johnson the very next year.

So they only gave him one year and he becomes a back. Wade. Let's go Wade. Wade Phillips. Yep. And he becomes a backup for, I'm not kidding, like a whole decade and no one sees him from 98 to,

I think, Oh seven. And he's just like, shows up with Washington wins for, like you said, four or five games in a row and is in the playoffs. I was like, wait,

that cannot be Todd Collins is a pretty like generic name. That cannot be the same Todd Collins. Oh, it was. Yeah. He's still around. He's back. This is,

this is why we love these guys on the show. All right. The I guess I should ask you, I should have asked you like Philadelphia, Washington, like, are these, is why we love these guys on the show uh all right the um i guess i should ask you i should have asked you like philadelphia washington like are these are these coin flips to you against the vikings or are these games where you say the vikings should win or should lose i would say the eagles is a coin flip game um i think if the vikings are actually a playoff contender in any way they should be able to handle Washington.

I agree. Yep. I agree. It's at Washington. So, I mean, that's maybe, I don't know if that's factor or not the turf.

I don't know. Somebody will get hurt. They have, we know that they have turf. That used to be first game back in Washington. It is. Yep. Yep.

Yep. Revenge. Nice. Yes. He is not, he is not avenged them letting him go in any other way so maybe this is a chance uh he's still been better than what they've had for five years or whatever now oh yeah no he most definitely has and as far as like lawsuits he doesn't have any and congress doesn't want to talk to him so So he's like way ahead of their owner. But anyway, so let's I don't believe he had anything to do with them making the cheerleading squad into a bunch of strippers that they could show to the business partners of Daniel Snyder. I don't think Kirk was involved in that.

So, yeah, he's he's definitely one of the cheerleaders didn't want to get vaccinated he knew we're gonna move on to the giants gonna move on to the giants daniel jones this is the big one daniel jones are people talking themselves into daniel jones and are there reasons for people to talk themselves into daniel jones i, I can understand how this could happen. I think that's the best way of saying it. You get a new guy in Dable here who knows what he's doing. You look at the last basically three years with Joe Judge and

Jason Garrett, and you look at that and you throw it out. Go away. Don't want to think about you anymore. Okay. So Daniel Jones in his first year threw some good deep passes. He looked pretty decent. He wasn't look at that and you throw it out go away don't want to think about you anymore okay so daniel jones in his first year threw some good deep passes he looked pretty decent he wasn't regarded as like a top quarterback prospect at that point i don't think by anybody but he showed some flashes and you get him in a good set you surround him with good receivers now that they're you know they're like five or six deep at this position. Saquon, still the best talent.

They've improved the offensive line. I can totally see how people would go into this thinking, yeah, this could be a decent Daniel Jones year. I don't think he's going to be like an MVP candidate or anything, but I think he can rebound and become maybe next year's Trubisky on the market, that sort of thing. The one thing about Daniel Jones, though, that I cannot get over is, I mean, you talk about Carson Wentz turning the ball over and having crazy passes like Daniel Jones fumbles

like he's me or you like in the pocket. I know if I played quarterback in the NFL for a single play, what would happen? I would get scared and I would let go of the ball and say, get away from me. That's kind of been Daniel Jones's career. Now they've built up their offensive line. I don't know if that's the difference maker or if it's him because quarterback sacks are kind of a quarterback stat, having more receivers that could get open, having a better system. Does he understand the system better? Like all these things would factor in, but when a guy hasn't even averaged seven yards a pass at any point yet in his career i and and

turns it over as much as he does i guess i'm skeptical of how you could just sort of wash that stuff away and be like oh no that has nothing to do with who he actually is it was just the system i'll put it this way i think daniel jones is in for a year of being a fantasy football darling like the kind of guy who like out of nowhere will be a qb1 for you know a quarter of the weeks maybe half the weeks if he's lucky that sort of thing and you know is he going to make bad plays like well sure he will he's you know he has that turnover gene as you said and you know whenever i think of daniel jones i just think of him breaking away into the open field and then playing for the goal line.

So, yeah, I mean, that kind of is his brand. So I do believe that he'll take a step forward. I don't think he's going to be like, you know, I don't think he's going to rejuvenate the career and become like Tannehill or anything. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that's the one that everybody kind of has to go back to because there aren't that many examples of players who sort of failed as uh first round draft picks and then

succeeded elsewhere i think the giants based on the coaching change going from bottom two coach in the league last year urban meyer the crown champion of maybe the one of the worst ever uh but right behind him i mean joe judge was lucky that people made fun of urban Meyer a lot more because there were so many hilarious and bizarre press conferences and everything else from Joe judge that I would buy an argument much more. If you said one of these teams, that's not Dallas ends up winning the division. Who is it?

I would buy an argument much more for the new york giants than i think i would washington and maybe almost even with philadelphia and i don't know if that's a hot take or not i mean it is but i can see what you're saying too you can see how it can all come together i do think defensively that unit right now with with a quarterback especially, that would scare me. I think they're going to be almost the opposite of the Joe Judge teams now, though. Like they're transitioning from this run-heavy, boring as hell, play decent defense, you know, scrap around and get a 15-10 win if they're a lucky sort of team into, hey, let's throw the ball around.

Let's lose 2735. Well, I'd like to see that much more than anything involving Joe judge. What do you think of the, the influx of like this guy, this coach is supposed to completely change our offense. I mean, this is what we're doing here. This is what Denver is doing. Russell Wilson will have more to do with that, but it seemed like this off season, there were just a lot of, and even Josh McDaniels, the head coaching hires were, this is the offensive coordinator who is supposed to take us to the next level. Because I think that I think with Brian Dable, I would buy it in comparison

to Joe judge, but I'm also not sure that he just takes the Josh Allen system and says here, Daniel Jones, you run it. Like, I don't know that he has the same skillset to, I think he's a good athlete, but not to the level of someone like Josh Allen, who spent a lot of plays where it's like, well, the play broke down, but then Josh Allen threw seven people out of the way and fired it to stefan diggs like i don't know that that is going to be exactly the same so i wonder what you make of that it's a very common narrative in a lot of cities that the new head coach who is an offensive coordinator is going to be different i mean i think that's definitely become trendy i'll put it that way

it's it's it's a trendy way to think about improving because if you improve the coaching, you don't need to improve the player. Nobody wants to improve the player. Now, it would just be admitting too many things went wrong. So yeah, I don't think that Daniel Jones is going to become Josh Allen. I think that's obvious. I do think that you can take a lot of what happened with Josh Allen, you know, running spread and that sort of thing. And Benjamin Jones's natural athleticism, doing read option stuff like I do think there are things that can benefit him a lot out of that system. Just, you know, he's not going to be Josh Allen. Right, right. I think very few people have ever had his physical skill set.

Now, let's do let's do the part about the Vikings matching up against them. Right, right. I think very few people have ever had his physical skill set. Now, let's do the part about the Vikings matching up against them. This is one that I think everybody just writes in. Oh, Vikings W. I think that's probably right because of what you said about their secondary. And I think the Vikings are probably just a stronger team overall. But it also has the one like that one in the, in the game against the jets for the Vikings or the one where you go,

Oh, everyone wrote that in as a W. And then by the time you got there, you went, Ooh, they're stronger than we thought. And it ends up being like the surprise loss that we didn't expect. I guess I feel that way, even though I think that it's right for everyone preseason to put the

Vikings ahead of the giants. When I think about these single games, this isn't really an area I traffic and analysis a whole lot because it's just so volatile. But when I think about the single games, I try to look back at history. And what I most remember about Vikings versus Dayball was that first game in Josh Allen's rookie year that he really you know surprised I think they were like 17 point favorites in the game something like that like it was a lot and the Bills won in Minnesota so that would scare me a lot no I mean I agree yeah trying to pick games at the beginning of the year like somebody misses a field goal there's a fumble who knows uh covet will probably come back like who knows who knows right by the time we get to

vikings giants but i also think that that's like one of the fun things to do in the off season is try to figure out who's going to win these football games um let's see backup journeyman or backup slash or journeyman quarterbacks for the giants are a little bit tricky um let's see well david car david car yeah david car yeah sorry i stole your champion david car now what yeah one of the also one of the more bizarre and forgettable eras would be kurt warner as a new york giant um kerry collins was a journeyman you had i'll give you one deep in the weeds kent graham but kent graham yeah those are the early madden days let me let me take you back to an era where everybody thought that doug marone would draft his boy ryan nasib

in the first round and instead he went to the giants and just stood there and i don't think even played an nfl game maybe like one or two, but that was, that was an interesting era to be alive in. I can take that story a layer deeper, which is, um, the Buffalo bills who did not draft, uh, Ryan Nassib in that, in that draft. And I think he went in like the fourth or fifth round, they played the giants in the preseason and it might have even been the Hall of Fame game. And Ryan Nassib was fantastic. And so after that, like, because I used to do pre and post game show after that, it was like, how could Marone, when he played with this great young quarterback, not pick him up? Look at how the guy just played the Hall of Fame game. And it was like, well, who can argue with that?

Who can argue with that logic? But they nailed it with EJ manual. So of course the one year where you don't want to have a quarterback. Let's let's talk about Texas's team, the Dallas Cowboys number one in scoring last year. And like you said, I mean, the DVO numbers love them. They had a great season. They won 12 games.

Why does it seem like it was so bad? It's just that the way that it ended was so ridiculous and miserable with them running the clock out on themselves, which is something that someone new to Madden might accidentally do. It's just like, Oh, I don't, I don't know how to use timeouts or manage the clock at all.

But that's kind of what it feels like to me. It also feels like they started out so good and so hot. And then we're really not that great in the second half of the season and then couldn't move the ball against San Francisco, that that is our impression of them. Also, there's no respect for Mike McCarthy, which I totally understand, but are they the the team and this is weird to say that's sort of overlooked in the

conversation because of these things i mean i thought it was interesting that you led off with the commanders by saying that they're commanding our respect because i kind of feel like the cowboys the team in this division that commands your attention no matter what. We've all been exposed to way too much Cowboys. They can't get them off the NFC, you know, Fox or a clock game. Impossible to do. Have to watch them. You have to watch Ezekiel Elliott play through his spring PCL and be terrible every damn week for the entire season.

They've subjected you to that. You have to watch Mike McCarthy make some boneheaded management decision every week. They've subjected you to that. So, yeah, I do think that there's a lot of dissonance there, and that kind of plays into how I'm kind of favoring them this season for sure. I do think that they have taken some hits this offseason losing Amari Cooper losing Randy Gregory I don't think those are like enormous hits but I do think they make it a little bit harder for them Randy Gregory when he's playing is an absolute beast I mean he has just destroyed the Vikings

every time that they've played him and I mean mean, Amari Cooper did the same thing. I think he had like 19 catches in a game, 19 targets and 16 catches in a game against the Vikings. So they'll be happy to see him gone. But yeah, that's all the Cooper rush. Right. And Amari Cooper was the one who lost Cam Dantzler to win that game. A very memorable time. I wrapped up the podcast by saying, folks, your team just lost to cooper rush and then just shut it off uh but um you know i i still think that when you look at this roster and the fact that they have one of the most dynamic players on defense in the entire nfl a quarterback who is consistently putting up huge point totals yet still gets debated which is kind of weird to me like i think we should have decided a long time ago that Dak Prescott is just very good.

But yet it still seems like there's a questioning of whether they can be a legitimate contender. And I feel like that has to be mostly Mike McCarthy, that we just don't feel like he's a good enough coach to have them consistently winning 12 games. No, I think it goes beyond Mike McCarthy, actually. I think it goes to ownership itself. It's just kind of what you were saying with Dan Sider. When you have that level of uncertainty buffering on everything. And then, you know, this offseason, they asked Jerry Jones about Mike McCarthy.

He's like, oh, well, we'll see what happens. I don't know. I'm crazy. Maybe I'll get Sean Payton next year. Who cares? Leave me alone. That level of uncertainty just kind of permeates everything. I do think that Prescott gets a bad rap.

I think that a lot of what happened last season was him playing through injury. The hamstring hurt his body to run or his body to throw. And even before the season, you had that kind of shoulder thing where we were like, is he going to be able to, you know, rip it full speed? I don't know. He played pretty well for the first couple games, like he did before getting hurt in 2020, actually. And then it kind of fell apart while he was hurt. So kind of the story of the Cowboys right now.

If you want to find a reason to, you know, slap them down, tell them that they're bad, yeah, you've got it. It's not hard to find on the tape. It's just, was it an injury? Was it something else? Or was it talent? I don't think it was a talent. I think it's one of those couple things.

Yeah, I think that they are still one of the most talented teams, even though they've lost players. And I guess I always wonder if there's something to – there shouldn't be, but is there something to the pressure that everyone in Dallas always faces post they won a bunch of Super Bowls? Like it seemed to – they would have great regular seasons with Tony Romo, but it seemed to kind of get to them at some point. And with Dak Prescott, like they – you're right, though.

Like no matter how much media we have in this world, if you turn on first take in the NFL season and Dallas isn't on and I, it's totally shocking. So I don't know. I don't know if you think there's something to that or not. I do think that there's a lot of pressure there. Absolutely. And I do think it drives a lot. I don't know that it, you know, it's downright changing results. I think that there are, you know, if you're actually in the NFL, you probably made enough pressure situations in your life where you're not, you know, a choke under the pressure or something. But I do think that there's always going to be that kind of lingering uncertainty about everything in Dallas until, you know, the ownership is more stable in some way.

I mean, otherwise it's just going to haunt them. Yeah, I think it's more of like everything is under a microscope as being like the team that still gets the most focus. For whatever reason, they haven't won anything in a very long time, but they've been relevant a lot and a playoff team a lot and had good quarterback play a lot. So I understand why that is. It just seems like there's when anything goes wrong there's so much more attention to it for maybe some other teams i don't know like i think about these things a lot that as we try to

talk about the football outsiders almanac and look at the statistics but i'm always sort of interested in what kind of causes some of these things to happen it's really interesting kind of what goes on in Dallas for sure I mean it's I'm trying to get my train of thought here on this but it's it's almost like it's impossible for them to just be normal and you know it even when they were you know bad they were still like, we're going to trade for spoiler on my, on my backup quarterback. We're going to trade for Drew Henson. We're going to send a third round pick for Drew Henson.

That'll make it all better. Like there's always just that little level of wacky, just waiting to be unleashed in any Dallas storyline. And I mean, I led the almanac with that. They led the NFLmanac with that they led the nfl penalties last year like they just they're just a wacky wacky bunch right now um yeah i'll go i'll well so i i uh grew up in minor league baseball cities and so i saw drew henson play third base against the rochester red wings and he was playing for the scrantonon Wilkes-Barre Yankees so

and I think that's as far as it went that was that there was a whole thing because it was Brady and Drew Henson in college and uh we are showing our ages here but like there was all this attention for Henson well he's gonna play baseball is he gonna play football and he chose baseball and then he wasn't all that good and then he tried to come back for football and he wasn't all that good at that so this man is better at sports than 98 of the population but wasn't quite good enough at either ones it's always sort of fascinating with him i was going to say uh randall cunningham was a brief dallas cowboys quarterback and also i And also, Drew Bledsoe, Dallas quarterback, was not a great experience for the Dallas Cowboys, if I recall. So those are my journeyman selections.

Oh, we can go to journeyman now. Okay, what are my favorite seasons? Well, journeyman or backups, either way. One of my favorite seasons is, out of nowhere, Vinny Testaverde off injury starting like 15 games for the Cowboys made absolutely no sense in any facet, except that Bill Barcells came out. So that was great. I think we've got to bring up Chad Hutchinson. You have to bring up Chad Hutchinson for sure. Yeah.

We need another minor league pitcher in there. So, so there you go. There was a moment I think, where on a broadcast, somebody said, maybe they found their guy here in Chad Hutchinson. And you're like, yeah, maybe. Could be. Anthony Wrights was another one. Was Anthony Wright the guy or was it Quincy Carter? Which one of them was the starting quarterback

and then just had drug problems and was out of the league pretty quickly. It was, well, I mean, it's Dallas. So there's probably a, probably a, yeah,

that's what I thought. Like, cause he was pretty, like Quincy was pretty good. Anthony, right. It was not good at all, but like,

I actually thought they might have their future quarterback and Quincy Carter at the time. I mean, if I watched it back, he might've been horrendous, but I thought he was good. I always throw Anthony right with the Ravens for some reason. He's not,

I never, I never think of him as a cowboy first yeah he was a ray that's what makes it so random is that he was definitely a raven so they had yeah they had uh quite a time and if you want to do deep cut even though it's recent like ben denucci starting a game for them i will always remember the hey if you want to know what uh know what somebody who's weighing over their head looks like starting a game in the NFL, Ben DiNucci, everybody. So good times. That was fun. That was fun and all. Don't get me wrong.

But then just this year, Ian Book took it to the next level. I'm sorry, Ben. It's over. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Ian Book was probably the worst looking quarterback that has ever had to step in. And he's a fourth roundround draft pick, so whoops.

Anyway, so who wins this game? I would take Dallas in that game. I would take Dallas in that game for sure. I mean, if they could beat him last year with Cooper Rush. I don't think the Vikings would look out of place in that game, but I do worry about, you know, Dan Quinn's back.

I think he goes, he does. He has some good disguises that her cousins can't pick up on quite that well. And I'd always worry about cousins whenever he's asked off script. That's, that's a dangerous situation for me. Always,

always. So, yeah, well, I, you know, I was just going to check check on this guess what you're gonna get to see in your life november 20th 2022 at 3 45 p.m central that late afternoon nfl game

the dallas cowboys playing against the minnesota vikings so america will see the cowboys how lucky are they as always they're they're always lucky one more thing about the cowboys before we before we leave um i've been the guy all year and i think i'm the only person left on this thing i think is he still it's still good he was just hurt but everybody was subjected to a million carries of him being terrible And that just kind of stuck in our heads. So Tony Pollard, I think, is a good back. I wrote him up in FOA, and I was like, you know who he kind of compares to?

It's your boy, Chester Taylor. Oh, yeah, very popular. Very popular in Minnesota. The returns, the catching, he's kind of all-purpose, but good enough to be a starting committee back. But I think Elliott's still better, and I think you guys in fantasy need to get that through your heads. You know, the number of number two running back types who are really good throughout the last 20 years of the NFL,

that's a whole other podcast. I mean, there's a lot. I was thinking he's like a Napoleon Kaufman or something or a Charlie Garner. It was amazing that the run the Chargers went on when they had LT and they wind up with Sproles and Michael Turner, the burner. Yes. Michael Turner, who I think, if I'm not mistaken, had like 98 speed or something on Madden. So you always just went and got Michael Turner away from them because that was that's what I would do is I would go through and I would trade for someone's backup running back trade like a fourth round pick. Get someone's backup running back that has 97 speed and then you're good. That's your guy.

See, I wasn't that complex. i was just like looking at the overall ratings who's gonna play these games come on we're here to say you got you gotta play you gotta play gm you gotta go out you gotta make moves gotta build your roster make moves i signed for agents and traded them for picks a classic game hack yes for sure for sure. Well, always, always great to get together with you rivers. People should go to football outsiders.com, get the football outsiders almanac that is written by great folks like yourself. Derek Klassen was on the show the other day.

So you've heard this incredible content. I mean, if you can, if you can bring up true Henson and Chad Hutchinson on the show, then you know that a man really knows football, but no, really to get together with you and look at look at you look at you you're beaming that we didn't talk about the texans your your cat is sleeping in the back feeling great about life like everyone is happy there that we did not discuss the houston texans on the show yeah it was it was a lot of fun to just sit down and talk about football. Interesting how that works. Teams that could win stuff and be competitive. Imagine.

Might be favored in a game or two this year. Who knows? Oh, yeah, that's right. You're 0 for 17 on that in Houston, but I won't rub it in. Anyway, well, River, it's always great to get together with you, and we will absolutely do it again, Texans or not. Thank you, sir. Thank you.