Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What does the win over the Panthers mean for Vikings, Kirk Cousins? Ft. Jeremiah Sirles

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

On this episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard, former Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Sirles dives deep into the Vikings' win over the Panthers, why Eric Kendricks deserves to be All-Pro again, another test passed by Justin Jefferson, running Kirk Cousins(?) and why this year is kind of a mess for the NFL. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Grant Wall, and this is American Prodigy, ready to do, from Blue Wire Podcast. Hello, welcome to another episode of Tuesday Morning Left Guard. Tuesday morning, left guard Matthew Collar and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles on a beautiful Tuesday morning where you and I are sitting waiting until Wednesday to watch some National Football League. I think that's how the song goes, right? Waited all week for Wednesday afternoon to watch Steelers and Ravens. Is that how it goes? Nothing like a nice 340 kickoff as you're eating your turkey sandwich for lunch on a

Wednesday, just hoping that the day is over because you're eating your turkey sandwich for lunch on a Wednesday, just hoping that the day is over because you're two steps closer to the weekend. So, you know, why not? And don't get to watch any one good play either. Mark Andrews is out. Lamar Jackson's out. Gus Edwards is going to carry the ball 100 times. So who knows, dude?

It could be an absolute dumpster fire, but it's still at least NFL, and I don't have to watch Maction, so that's possible. Wait, wait. I'm not a Maction guy. Let us not besmirch the Maction. No. Tuesday night Maction is unreal. You have no idea what's going to happen.

It was actually like the Vikings and Carolina Panthers, where literally each team tries to lose it for 60 straight minutes, and then whoever has the ball last screws up and the other team wins. That's how it goes. On the big picture, as I was reviewing the tape, I was just sad inside. I mean, this game had so many mistakes that it really was like a match-in. And even though the Vikings win, and in the big picture, you're 5-6, you're right in that playoff race, the middling teams of the NFL are not middling they are bad and the Vikings are bad

and the Panthers are bad and they just kept batting each other back and forth until someone finally screwed up at the end and a very very makeable 54 yard field goal by the Panthers so I don't you tell me where you want to start with this, because from a pure entertainment standpoint, it was probably like a wild ride and a roller coaster for fans who watched it. From a reviewing it and trying to look for good football things, it was a little painful. So is there a place, a play that you want to start with? I know you threw it out there to Twitter to ask for breakdowns. So where do you want to begin with this thing? Dude, let's start with the good, which is, for Vikings at least,

which is the Kendricks pick, right? So that's a great play. First of all, Kendrick has eyes on the back of his head, and you can't convince me otherwise. His pick last week where he literally didn't even look at the guy one time, he just knew off of film study, like, okay, this guy's gonna be right behind me and just drop straight back into the ball was incredible. This week, you can tell same thing. He knew exactly what route was coming. He knew exactly where it was coming. He dropped back. He saw the first crossword and he goes, yep. And the fricking running back over there for Carolina got little alligator arms and was like,

I don't want to get hit and just stopped and boom interception by Kendricks. Great play by him. One thing I did notice, Zimmer didn't blitz as much as he usually did this game. I didn't see as many blitzes. He liked to line up in it, right? You see the double mug, Harrison walked up on the edge, and then right before the snap, they'd all bail. And then the one time that they did, which we'll get into a little bit later, Fadio Dingabo tried to chase down Robbie Anderson,

which is never going to happen. But I think that was a really good play to start with. I looked at it. We didn't get a ton of pressure on Teddy all day unless we blitzed, but Eric Kendrick's man is an all-pro, and he better be the all-pro middle linebacker this year or else it's an absolute hatchet job by the NFL. By pro football focus metrics, by the way,

he is number one as a cover cover linebacker and he's number three overall so another year ahead of him uh off the check uh but just i mean another year of him playing elite elite football and what's been really cool with him is that you know when you watched even in 2016 2017 is like this guy is a really good player. But it's just continued to go up to where he has become not just a good player but a superstar in the league and on a weekly basis. I think there's more value to an elite linebacker than a lot of other positions. Bobby Wagner and Miles Jack are the only guys who are ahead of him. I would put, oh, my gosh, the kid from San Francisco

who's having an unbelievable year. Fred Warner is fit. Fred Warner, okay, I would say he's playing really good ball too. I think Bobby Wagner's really good. I think he gets a little overhyped at times. He's a thumper now, but I think Kendricks is playing better ball than him this year at least. Well, so there's the grade and then there's the value.

And the thing with Bobby Wagner is he has a great run defense grade. He has a great pass rush grade, which he's done a lot of. And Kendricks obviously does less of that. But Kendricks is number one in coverage, which to me is by far the most valuable thing you can do. A lot of linebackers can create pressure when it's schemed up for them. There's nothing special you have to do as a linebacker other than just follow the rules that you're asked to do to get pressure. And then it's whether they block you or not. A lot of times.

I mean, sometimes you smoke a running back. But when it's coverage, the NFL is just running crossers and mesh concepts and all those things all the time with play action. When you have that guy who can cover that much ground and is as smart as he is and then can make plays on the ball, I mean, it's the reason that they've been able to keep themselves in games despite not being able to cover or pressure. I mean, that's a great segue there, Matt.

You don't even know about linebackers scheming up hits into the Kirk Cousins fumble. The Kirk Cousins fumble, which was just a pure disaster to start with. I mean, there was nothing good that came from that, obviously. But again, you talk about scheming it up. Well, that was Shaq, Shaq Thompson, right? I think that's his name. I played with him. He's a thumper.

Again, he's not as athletic as Kendrick is, but he's a ball hawk, right? He's around the ball a lot. And so they lined up, and I know you guys wanted me to break this down, so I'll kind of just run it through you real quick. So they line up in a five-down set. They got three defensive linemen over the center of the left guard and the left tackle. And then they have Shaq Thompson over the right guard and then they have the right tackle on the right end over the right tackle there and all they did is run a very simple nose linebacker

stunt so what they did is they had the nose guard over Garrett go pick Brett Jones big guy love Brett big Brett fan and then they had the guyq Thompson, just take two steps up the field, get Brett to sink a little bit, and then just wrap around the other A gap, coming around the left side of Garrett. Problem is, Garrett didn't flatten the penetrator at all. If you want to stop a stunt, I mean, Ronnie Staley, we're going back and forth on this on Twitter this week about how do you stop a stunt, whose fault is it on the stunt.

A, number one, if you're ever going to watch a stunt and you're like, oh, that guy got beat, it's whoever doesn't flatten the penetrator. There's always a penetrator and a looper. Garrett Bradbury did not flatten the penetrator. He just kind of laid his healing hands on him and allowed him to go pick Brett Jones in the shoulder and then try to come off late

to get back to the looper, and that's a cardinal sin. If you don't flatten the penetrator, you can't leave the down lineman because he's going to get to the quarterback first because he's going to split the two guys. So because you see Dalvin Cook tries to come over and slide over and save them and try and kind of stand in the A-gap and take the hit, and he would have. But the problem was he hit Brett in the shoulder, pinned his left shoulder.

Garrett opened the gate and then just left to go back to the linebacker, which left the D-lineman free, and he just ran up and hit Kirk, and Kirk had no shot. He was holding the ball down low for whatever reason. I think he was going to try and spin out or do something escape-wise, and he hit him and just ended up fumbling the ball. But that's all because of just a very simple, like you said, a scheme thing. When you're blocking a linebacker as an offensive lineman, you like to kind of give them a lot of space because they're a wiggle guy,

and you want to almost invite them, like, hey, run into my chest. Like, just run into me. Just don't wiggle around me. Just run into me. And so I think that Brett, the combination of Brett backing off the ball and then Garrett also kind of backing off the ball and not making a stand a little sooner really just put them on two different levels,

which if you're trying to pass up a stunt is impossible to try and do, which allowed them to split and go hit Kirkirk and cause that fumble and guess what that's another pandora's box thing that opened that we're going to see more of now until we can show that we stopped it so it's uh i wonder about with um bradbury and the past protection just he's made some progress i think but at the same time and going back to the pff grades they got him 30th out of 32 in pass protection this year and i think that it's fair in the last couple of weeks he's really struggled he still gets overpowered at times and gets driven back into the quarterback and i think we've reached

the point where i'm willing to say i don't think he's ever going to be even an average pass protector without a lot of gains like when you're at the bottom it's very hard to get too good i mean maybe average but at the middle end of year two you're not average and he's like what 25 or 26 years old now like that's probably just not going to happen and teams who attack that effectively are having success and i think that's the case here I also love how you broke down because it looks in fast motion and then in the slow motion to replay like it's a Brett Jones disaster especially because Brett Jones is sort of jumping back toward Kirk which I said that's the right guard statue for like the Mike Zimmer era of offensive line is an offensive lineman jumping at the quarterback but yeah I thought when you looked back at it, and this is why, you know,

whoever was grading it for PFF gave that play to Bradbury and not to Jones because it was that. And I think any team, if they could cover a little against the Vikings, if you can attack that middle, it still causes major problems. And the answer to with Kirk, like Kirk just fumbles I mean this it is it is a feature not a bug with Kirk like this has always been a thing that if you hit him he probably will fumble at some point and it sort of speaks to the weaknesses that this team still has especially if someone can create some pressure on Cousins which the rest of the day Carolina

didn't do a great job of but but they certainly changed the game there. Yeah, I mean, that's the blueprint on Cousins, right? Give pressure on his face. I mean, that's been the blueprint on him since when he was in the Washington football team. The Washington, yeah. I want to call them like – we should just make up names to call them when they come up. Like I'll call them the Sharks, the Washington Sharks. I'm going to go with the Red Wolves.

Okay, Red Wolves, all right. That was when he was with the Red Wolves out there in Washington but uh you know you know that's that's what you got to do and I think that with how good the tackles are playing which they are I think I think O'Neill and Riley are playing good they got beat a couple times this week nothing like but they're not getting ran around the edges right like they're they're doing a nice job out there so teams are are seeing that and scheming up, okay, D-ends, we're just going to kind of let you work out there, and if you beat them, great. Where we're going to put our schemes and where we're going to put our wrinkles is on those middle three. We're going to go after Dozier, Bradbury, and whoever is playing right guard, right?

I mean, we've had three guys in there now. So it's also, that's another piece to the passing off of the stunts. Like, you can do it in practice over and over and over and over again again but you don't have a lot of synergy with that guy next to you and bradbury because you haven't played a ton with him so you don't really know like okay is jones behind me is he level with me where's he at is he like that's a big piece too so much you have to have so much synergy on an offensive line the five guys got to trust each other know where they're at know where they're each step each foot's going to be. And because we played three, four guys at right guard already, there's just not a lot of chemistry there between those two.

You have to give Kirk some credit for running with the football for a couple of first downs. And, you know, you played with Cam Newton. I thought it looked exactly the same. Not at all. You couldn't be wrong. You couldn't be more wrong. Kirk is more towards the – Kirk is getting older now You couldn't be wrong. You couldn't be more wrong.

Kirk is more towards the – Kirk is getting older now and looking more like the Philip Rivers running the football. Yeah, that's a good comparison. Cam Newton running the football. We're going to put it on his side there because when Philip runs the football, you kind of hold your breath because you think he's going to die. You think someone's just going to de-at him and like baby deer and fall down so he's definitely getting up there in age where when Kirk runs you hold your breath a little bit I'm not sure it was ever an age thing it was like there's a uh athletic and that there is it was actually at some point now this was a funny thing

because in the off season if we asked Kirk what he was working on in terms of his improvement he would always say his running and like a I don't know how you really work on it's like do it or don't and uh second like oh okay it's the perfect criticism of himself to not really reveal what you know he's working on but uh you know I guess maybe he was telling us the truth I also think there was um one quote and I wish I could remember it exactly, but he said something like, I'm a good enough athlete to do it. And it's like, no, you're not. Not really. But I will say that in recent weeks, the way that he's moved around and thrown the football on the move has been, I think, better than I've ever seen him since

he's been a Viking. I would agree. And I think that the emergence of Justin Jefferson being a superstar, which by the way, can we put to bed now how people were so upset that Diggs has left? Because I think that both people are happy with the fact that Buffalo is extremely happy in what they got in Stefan Diggs, exactly what they needed for a guy up there, right? Veteran, leader, young quarterback, be a stud. Cool. And then they go draft basically with Buffalo's pick, Justin Jefferson. And who is basically exactly what Diggs was as a young player. Probably better than even what Diggs was as a young player

to go there. So no more yelling about Diggs being gone and all that. I want that to go away, first of all. So I think that really is helping out Cousins a lot. I think Kubiak scheming for two number one wide receivers back to which Jefferson and Wintheven is in there is helping Kirk out a lot. And again, we talked about the trust on the offensive line.

There's a lot of trust between Kirk and his receivers right now. You're seeing it where he's not afraid to let it rip because he knows his guys are going to be in the right position. And a lot of times when Kirk is hesitant or not throwing it down the field, I think none of that has to do with can he do it. We all know he can. Does he trust the guy to be there so it's not an interception? Or does he trust the guy to run the over route at 18 and not 15

so it's not an overthrow? You know what I mean? Like you're starting to see more of that, which is exactly what you want to see at this point in the season. You just wish we could have got here a little sooner. But a lot of that had to do with no OTAs, no preseason, blah, blah, blah, blah, boo. But you've got to get there.

And so it's good to see them making that progress and getting there. And, again, Kirk is playing lights out. You can't say, oh, yeah, he still has his mistakes. But you really want to whine about quarterbacks? Go watch the Broncos game. Just go watch the Broncos game and then tell me how upset you are that Kirk Cousins has a Viking. Or an Eagles game.

My gosh. Oh, my gosh. I'm not sure Carson Wentz looked much better than the practice squad receiver playing quarterback. I mean, it was. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There are many great designs.

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Soda Stick, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PurpleInsider for free shipping. Like, somebody made a great point. I think it was Greg Rosenthal of NFL.com who said, like, the ball never goes where he is aiming it. Like, it's just wildly, insanely inaccurate all the time. I mean, there's all these excuses. The broadcast, my gosh. I mean.

I was just about to say that. One time he's like, yeah, you've got to put that ball in there. You've got to zip it in there. Then he's like, oh, got to put more air into the ball. I was like, what is it, dude? Like, make up your mind. That's been a struggle, I think, the Monday Night Football. Since, I mean, Frank and Al and Dan, it's been a struggle.

But this year's been rough. But they were, oh, well, he doesn't have this. He doesn't have that. He doesn't have the other thing. Like, look, I watched Sam Bradford with a struggling offensive line still play competent NFL quarterback. You can't deny it was a struggling offensive line in 2016, even if you were part of it.

We made it work, okay. Not in the run game. But, yeah, for sure, though, like he was accurate throwing the ball still and he would, you know, find short passes and stuff. Like their offensive line is terrible in Philadelphia. But he looks like he's never played NFL quarterback. I feel like I might be going over the top, but maybe not. He looked like Ben DiNucci the time that Ben DiNucci started for the Cowboys.

He looked completely lost. Just like he had no idea what was going on. And he has enough weapons, I think, to at least play competent NFL football in the NFC East. And it looks like the guy is a backup quarterback now at this point. I mean, so do you. Making 39 million cash this year, by the way. I was going to say, do you bench your $39 million quarterback for Jalen Hurts? Yes.

Do you? Is it time now? I mean, technically you're still in the race for the division, which is unbelievable. Yeah, it is unbelievable. I don't know. I don't know if you do bench him. I think so.

I think you give Jalen Hurts a shot because this is not one year of Carson Wentz playing bad. This is one year of Carson Wentz playing bad. This is one year of Carson Wentz playing good. And so, you know, and in 2017, their team was so strong that Nick Foles can throw for 400 yards. So you're not wrong. You're not wrong. So anyway, they pay you the big bucks.

That's right. The go subscribe back to. Yeah, right. And buy the book. Yeah, I'll get you a copy. I need a copy. So going back to what we were talking about, it is really the way that Kirk has played recently has been absolutely fantastic.

What I would say is that you're always bracing for what's kind of coming because I did a thing on the website, again, subscribe, today, looking at his hot streaks throughout his career. Every single season he has a hot streak where his quarterback rating over five or even six, seven games is like 120, and then he'll lead the league in picks over the next five games. It's just kind of who Cousins is. So I've got one thing that I'm going to throw out there that Kirk Cousins can

keep doing so his quarterback rating stays high he continues to play well that is throw the ball to Kyle Rudolph when you got any problems he did it he did it Kyle Rudolph is not faster than you right now and yet the ball comes near him he will make the catch and I thought there you go Kirk it took Adam Thielen being out for you to actually do this. And guess what? Nine easy yards every time. Yeah, I mean, I can remember a video when Kirk got to Minnesota of their throwing Pat and Go or something.

And he threw it to Kyle Rudolph. And he goes, gosh. He was all mic'd up. Like, golly, that's like throwing into a mattress. Which is true. I mean, Kyle Rudolph, just he catches everything. I mean, I picked him up on fantasy this week because I had a feeling. I just had a feeling, and he came through clutch.

He had some good points. But again, yeah, throw it to – he's a weapon, right? He's huge. He's an offensive tackle that can run a little bit better than most tackles. And so, yeah, just throw it to him, get some good checkdowns. And you know the other thing that he can do to keep his quarterback rating high? Keep handing the ball off to Dalvin Cook. Yeah, that's true but in this game they actually did a good job of corralling dalvin cook and injuring him at one

point and so i i thought that one of the one of the things that i like to joke around with but not really joking is lean into the kirk like there's a lot of variance with Kirk Cousins, but the high end of it is really high. And so this game sort of showed you where if you do let him just throw a lot, when you've got all these weapons, if he's not getting pressured, he's going to probably play really well. And if he's going up against a coverage unit, that's not any good and leaves Rasul Douglas one-on-one with Justin Jefferson in the red zone, because that's definitely what good coach teams do, is leave Justin Jefferson one-on-one with a not good player.

I'll just, I mean, what are you doing? That goes back to what we were talking about. But I think that when they get into these games where the defense isn't playing particularly well, it's like lean into the Kirk, because you're going to run yourself right into tough situations if the other team even slightly slows down delvin cook yeah and that's the one thing you saw is i thought that our defense did a better job on first and second down than they have in the past few games of not there weren't a lot of negative plays but it was like two yards or three yards it wasn't like okay now

we're looking at second and four, second and three. So that did help. And kind of similar thing on our offense. If we didn't have a ton of third and ten pluses, right, we weren't every time behind the sticks. We got a couple times, but it wasn't like, okay, here's third and 22 again. I thought the offense did a nice job of staying on schedule, and I think to your point, that's because they did lean into the Kirk a little bit.

They kind of let, okay, do your thing. We're starting to trust you a little more. You're trusting your receivers a little more. Like it's just a trickle down effect, right? Everyone starts to trust everyone a little bit more. So I think that if you guys can get Ezra Cleveland back, hopefully this week, I mean, I like that kid. I think he was playing good ball before he got hurt. Nothing against Jones. It's just Ezra can give you a little bit more out there for athletic ability and the ability to kind of getra can give you a little bit more out there for athletic ability and the ability to kind of get out there in screens a little bit more. Get him back and I think sure up this unit a little bit.

I think that there can be a little bit better of a run here than we thought of initially. Let me get to that, but I don't want to forget you breaking down what happened on the Robbie Anderson touchdown because we sort of touched on it but didn't give the full breakdown. And one thing that I noticed over the last two weeks is if a running back picks up a Zimmer blitz and does a good job on it, then the quarterback will have a chance to make a play. And Tony Pollard did that. And Mike Davis did that on, on this play, but you usually don't see someone running with half the field just completely free in the NFL. That is a Maction type of thing.

So what happened there? Yeah, so it was classic Zimmer, right? He lines up with his two linebackers up in the A-gap. You got Harrison Smith walking around up on the defense's left side. And you see Teddy kind of look at it and go, okay, this is a little different. This isn't the bailout. Like, Teddy's seen that blitz a million times in training camp, right? Like, he kind of knows body language of those guys.

Even if he didn't say it, like, oh, yeah, I remember it, he knows. And so you see him kind of motion over to the three-trip set to his left, like, say something, and then you see him kind of point at the running back and kind of nod forward, right? Like, hey, it's coming. Like, buckle up. And you see Robbie Anderson, they fake a screen out to the left. Like, they fake a wide receiver screen,

and then Robbie Anderson puts his foot in the ground and just bangs and hauls butt across the field. And, I mean, Afadi had no chance, right? I mean, you can't look at Afadi and be like, come on, dude, cover that guy that runs a 4'4", like, at your 280 pounds running a 5'1". Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's just not fair. And so hats off to Teddy for seeing it and then making the check to it.

But our guy Chris Jones, man, at one point in time, you have to realize this dude's not just going to keep running out of Minneapolis Stadium out into the middle of downtown. Like, you can turn around. Like, you can turn around at one point. It's going to keep running out of Minneapolis Stadium, out into the middle of downtown. Like, you can turn around. Like, you can turn around at one point. It's going to be okay. And he just did it. Like, he just – he would have followed that dude in the locker room.

If he would have ran into the tunnel, into the visiting locker room, he would have been right there on his hips staring at him the whole time. And so, like, he just never turns around. And Afadi's probably, like, yelling at him, like, help, help. You could actually see Harris. Like, Harris waving his arms at him, like, hey, over here. So, like, remind me, if there's ever a fire or, like, I'm drowning, like, don't let me call for Chris Jones for help.

It's like a moth just following the flames. It's like, yeah. Oh, it's so bad, dude. I'm right on him. I'm right on him. I'm right on him. So bad. And then the last one I wanted to break down real quick. Everyone wanted to know what happened on the BB touchdown, right?

Oh, sure, yeah. Like the BB touchdown. And you know who's responsible for the BB touchdown is Jefferson. 100%. And it might not look like it, but if you go back and watch the tape, they're playing a little bit of a single high coverage. And Justin Jefferson's lined up on the right, Chad BB on the left. And Jefferson makes an in-cut, and he's running basically a shallow cross right at the goal line and you see the corner the safety and even the backside safety jump him like they knew like hey

we're going to just they're gonna go to Jefferson right it's like you know when you're playing against Julio Jones or you're playing against DeAndre Hopkins like they're going to their guy and so you saw all three of those guys collapse on him right in the center of the field, and it just allowed Beebe to take that one extra cut, and the guy got flat-footed a little bit because he thought he had help back in the middle of the end zone, but that safety bit hard on Jefferson, and they were able to throw it up over his head to Beebe. I mean, I was really happy Beebe was able to catch that and make up for the muff

because, man, it would have been a long week inapolis for that man if he wouldn't have done that and like you said when you win all is forgiven right like from from the general public he's still getting cussed out in the meeting room but like the general public all is forgiven but that was 100 because jefferson ran that cross and you saw three guys and i'm gonna film some of these breakdowns i'll put them on twitter later today or maybe tomorrow and just kind of show you what as i talk through what it actually looks like as you're watching it um but it's pretty cool to see that the respect and and what that jefferson has earned from other defenses here over the last few weeks i think he's in the red 2020 has already reshaped how we work and it's almost over businesses across the globe are challenged to be their We'll be right back. so you can focus on hiring the person you need to keep business going. Unlike other sites, Indeed gives you full control and payment flexibility over your hiring.

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He's a superstar. There's no doubt about it. Now my question now is, what does he do in the offseason? Does he do kind of like what some guys do where they think i've arrived or is he the kind of guy that's like i'm going right back to work even better than i was last year which for me he seems like a kind of guy that's gonna go right back to work you know for some reason i um don't think mike zimmer will pump him up as if he's a star just yet no he probably probably will not probably Probably not. He will not. Probably not. Because even Zimmer yesterday said something like, well, he's good.

Can he be great? And I'm like, I think he's pretty great. He wouldn't even call Everson great, man. Come on. That's right. That's right. Everson wasn't great. He was like the Vikings' leading sacker.

I felt like there might have been some past frustration there that got taken out in a press conference. But anyway, so, yeah. there that got taken out in a in a press conference but anyway so yeah um when it when it comes to jefferson though it was great to see in terms of like clearing that last hurdle of if you're the only guy out there who's a star can you make everyone better can you draw the attention can you still win and his route at the goal line in the second touchdown i mean it was just unreal and then he breaks a linebacker tackle like it really speaks to i think that at lsu maybe we didn't fully realize how strong the dude is i mean he's like that complete combination of being fast he can go from full speed to a stop

really quickly but then to just shred the tackle of a linebacker at the goal line like wow uh yeah there's a there's a lot of good things going on there so now answer this question before we get to love to see it hate to see it playoffs jeremiah no not unless this defense unless this defense can really turn a corner and and play good against we lost to the cowboys yeah i mean come on i mean i watched the cowboys play the other night, and I was like, we lost to these guys? And so we are way too inconsistent for the NFL playoffs. I'm sorry. Playoff teams are consistent football teams, unless you're in the NFC East. Like, unless you're in the NFC East, it's like, all right, well, flip a coin,

whichever one of you idiots want to take it, sure. But, I mean, we are in a good division with, I think, the Packers obviously win the division. It's not even close. Aaron Rodgers is playing out of his mind. And then you look across at, like, who's ahead of us. It's like, dude, those guys are playing consistently good football. Like, a couple of those losses those guys have against each other,

other playoff teams. Like, when we play playoff teams, we're going to get beat by them. Like, everyone looks at Seattle, right? Everyone looks at the Seattle game and is like, okay, maybe Seattle's a little beatable. But it's like, dude, when they're on, man, they're on. It's just like when we're on, we're okay. And I think that's the difference.

When the Vikings are hitting on all cylinders, offense, defense, they're okay. Versus you look at these teams that are hit when they're on, no one can beat them, right? And that night, no one's touching them because they're okay. Versus you look at these teams that are hit when they're on, like no one can beat them, right? And that night no one's touching them because they're all firing. And I think that's the biggest difference between the elite like playoff teams. And then just the guys kind of hanging around in that middle pack right now.

I totally agree. The only thing is that the NFL decided we need more playoff revenue. And now there are every year going to let a bad team in the playoffs every year and i mean with the nfc east now this year it's going to be two two i don't think i don't think arizona is good i mean i think they're okay i don't i don't think they're i don't think they're really good i think they're okay i think they're just fine like first of all kyler has been a little disappointing to me i mean his running has been amazing but his passing has been a little disappointing and they don't have a great defense.

They kind of have some of the same problems that the Vikings do. Like, they've got weapons that make Kyler better than he's played, but they have these inconsistencies. They've lost, what is it, three out of the last four or something. If they don't get a Hail Mary, then they're really falling apart, you know. So losing to New England, to me, was a test for them that they did not pass because New England is not a good team. New England almost lost to the freaking Jets.

So I look at it as Arizona is every bit as inconsistent as the Vikings. It's just that the NFL playoffs had something going for it that no other league did, which is they only let the good teams in in the past. And now they said, let's just, come on, you crappy team, let's let you in. I mean, the eighth, seven and one, 2018 Vikings would have made the playoffs in this format. And I think we all know like that was not a great team.

So yeah. I will say Arizona, Arizona, Arizona losing Chandler Jones was huge, huge. Like that's a game changing type of guy. And I think that is one of the main reasons they have fallen off as much as they have is because they – and it goes to show you how important a Daniel Hunter or how important a Everson was to a defense. Like everyone thinks like, oh, you lose a D-lineman. Like, no, no, no.

Like the Rams lose Aaron Donald, that defense is totally different than what they are right now. Like you saw the Bears, right? The Bears lose Akeem Hicks. Dudes are gashing them up the middle. One player on a defensive team makes way more difference than one player on offense, in my opinion. Also, their nose tackle, Arizona's, was pretty good, and I think he got hurt,

too. So they've had that problem for sure. I think they're very similar to the Vikings. If a few things bounce one way or the other, the Vikings could be 6-5. Arizona could be 5-6. Like, they're kind of the same team. Neither deserves to be in the playoffs. But it could happen because it is now the new format in 2020.

So, all right, love to see it, hate to see it. Where do you want to start? Go ahead. Do you want to start with the college football team? Oh, gosh's not going super well you know what though i will i will defend you in this way okay that everyone blames nebraska for wanting football back everybody wanted college football back all right like you had justin fields and trevor lawrence like i don't know marching outside or whatever, saying bring football back. Like it wasn't just Nebraska.

It's funny to make fun of them for leading the way, of course, but I don't think you deserve to like carry that. I'm going to say hate to see it with the Broncos quarterbacks. What are you doing? Follow the rules. You don't have to agree with the rules that's not how rules work you don't have to think oh well you know whatever i really take this virus seriously you don't have to do that you just have to follow the rules that are laid out you just have to put something across your face and then you get to play if you're the

quarterback of the team all of the quarterbacks um, you have to be a leader in that way. Even Kirk is wearing the mask on the sideline to make sure that he can't be taken out of the game that way. And the backup quarterbacks, Brett Rippin, what are you doing? Like you might get a chance to play and, and you're going to put that at risk and you're going to force somebody else into a horrible situation. I think it was really, really embarrassing for them. And then drew lockske's mom has something to say about it. Oh, that was great.

That was great, dude. Yeah, they should be trading for or drafting a quarterback this year because that ain't your franchise quarterback. So my love to see it is in the college football world, and I want you to hang with me here. So I've been looking at the numbers in the Big Ten, right? So here's what I think is going to happen. Ohio State is going to get one more game canceled. So they're going to hang with me here. So I've been looking at the numbers in the Big Ten, right? So here's what I think is going to happen. Ohio State is going to get one more game canceled.

So they're going to go 5-0, and they're not going to be eligible to play in the Big Ten championship. You're going to have Northwestern playing against a wounded Indiana. Northwestern's then going to win the Big Ten championship. Right. Who do you then let into the college football playoff? Do you let the one lost Northwestern team or do you take the 5-0 Big Ten champion, by the way, or do you take the 5-0 Ohio

State? Ohio State. But can you? Can you take a team in? No, no, no. I'm trying to put the best teams in. There's no way that Northwestern is better than Ohio State. They're ranked high enough to do it. That's that and that's where it is. The first playoff ranking came out. They're ranked high enough to do it. I think they lost this weekend though where it is. The first playoff ranking came out. They're ranked high enough to do it. I think they lost this weekend, though, didn't they? Didn't they lose to State? Who's that? Northwestern?

I don't know. I could be wrong. But anyways, I love to see the fact that Ohio State-ins are starting to panic a little bit. Just a little bit of tingle in their spine of like, oh, God, could this actually happen? Like, could we really not make the college football playoff with Justin Fields and the Lave and all these dudes? And just the pure panic and some of those like message boards have made me really really happy so that's the the ironic hate to see oh you hate to see all oh you hate this what a what a darn shame now i will say for love to see it and this one is not

the greatest sports victory of all time but ryan fit Fitzpatrick coming back off the bench with two, a hurt and winning another football game, the ultimate all time pro journeyman quarterback, the most likable guy, but also, you know, just good. Right.

And never gets an opportunity to play with good teams. Finally does in Miami gets benched for the rookie comes back as the pro that he is plays really well and beats the New York Jets. Good for you, Ryan Fitzpatrick. Love to see it. My last hate to see it is poor NBC. I'm reading why we're playing on Wednesday at 340 for the NFL game, right? Like, what are we doing?

And NBC, I think it's NBC, comes out with, well, we want to make sure that we get the game in before the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center on TV. Because everyone really wants to watch that. I do. No. That's a lie. I want you to tell me right now. I want you to tell me right now.

If that game is on at prime time, on prime time versus the tree lighting, you're going to tell me the tree lighting is going to win? Negative. Wrong. No. Horrible take. I want to win? Negative. Wrong. No. No. Horrible take. I want to sit at home on a Wednesday night, not a Wednesday afternoon, and watch NFL football of what could have been one of the better games played

this year. Now, granted, it probably won't because of all the crap, but I hate that they're like, well, we want to make sure we get the tree lighting ceremony in. Man, call me Scrooge, call me Bah Humbug, whatever. Give me football at nighttime, not an afternoon game. Wow. Especially for a religious man such as yourself to not celebrate the season.

I'll celebrate the season. I don't care about no tree lighting. Who gives a crap? Yeah, I don't either. It just is the silliness of the season. Right. At some point, you reach a threshold of like this whole thing's not legit and the same thing when you're talking about if if northwestern is in the college

football playoff it's not legit okay and the same thing goes for this if you got teams playing on wednesday and other teams starting wide receivers who are on the practice squad and we're like working at coals before this i mean this is not legit NFL football season, okay? Although, I mean, how about if you're the Saints? You're like, oh, got to take that week off, so feel good. And we're all feeling pretty good after that. But, I mean, it's just we are teetering on this thing has become kind of a disaster, and I think that their absolute refusal to reschedule games for a week 18 or to change things around,

you have even that week in between the Super Bowl that you could have changed and just played the Super Bowl one week after the playoffs. You can do that. To not have any built-in plan for when this inevitably happened was a fail. I think that overall they've done a good job but you knew at some point you were going to reach this and then they just said no sorry broncos go play with your you know guy no one's ever heard of playing quarterback and and shout out to that guy i mean dude 100 100 dude you know he was sitting at home chilling like ah weekend off practices i was over like

hey dude uh i think you played quarterback like three years ago at college uh you're gonna start for us this weekend at quarterback excuse me so you guys would have practiced the emergency quarterback situation right never never really wow why would you i don't know i thought like in one day in camp you in what world in what world does all of your quarterbacks get hurt not just like I'm talking all of them. Usually you have, like, three on active, maybe one on practice squad, two active. Usually you have three.

Like, maybe if something happened where, like, a bomb fell from the sky and only landed in the quarterback room, like, okay, sure. Yeah. Like, contingency plan, right? That never happens. You don't expect on, like, a Thursday to be like, hey, none of your quarterbacks can play. Just none of them. No. So I know know the bills do something different where they keep from away

from the facility on friday and thursday i think oh yeah i think like he's he has to stay away and can only do meetings which dude congratulations that's yeah right but like again that's them being smart i don't think the broncos the rest of the day yeah i don't think the broncos have a very smart organization going out there. It's not a great spot. The Vikings did say that they're not isolating like Nate Stanley or anything. So I don't know. As if it would matter whether it's –

Just follow the rules. Just follow the rules. It's not that hard. It's not that hard. I don't like it. No one likes it. It's the same thing like you follow the speed limit. Doesn't mean you like it.

Still got to do it. Right. Although my Honda Civic won't clear the speed limit no matter what. I will just give you one more love to see it. Please. I love to see the Detroit Lions making the right decision. Oh, I knew you were going to bring it up. It took a very long time for you to come around to it,

but Matt Patricia should not have had a job. This year, after the way that his first two seasons went, the fact that they gave him this much rope was kind of unbelievable. The most inept head coach I think I've ever seen, considering that they have a lot of talent on that team. There are a lot of good players. You have a good quarterback. You have some good weapons, a decent to good offensive line.

You've got some good players on the defensive side. And you are one of the worst teams in the entire NFL because your coach is a joke. That is what Matt Patricia is, a joke. And for whatever reason, it took him this long to get to it. But congratulations, Lions. For one of the first times in your history, you did something right. I love it. I saw an article today.

It was like, is Matt Stafford the head coach killer of the Detroit Lions? It's like, dude, you can't pin this on Stafford, dude. That dude has just done so much for that organization. Don't try and find – it was his fault. It was Patricia's fault. You can't go everywhere and be Bill Belichick. It's showing. Granted, Flores is probably the one guy that's having some decent success with it down there in Miami.

But, again, how long can that last when you don't have the championships behind you to back it up? Yep, yep. And maybe Flores isn't trying to be like a psycho bully. So that could also be. Or maybe he changes up his defense. I mean, they're three years. I looked this up, they're three years past defense in quarterback rating against 31st, 27th, 27th for a defensive genius.

Okay. You know who's sad, though? Kirk. Kirk is sad. He annihilated them. Every time he's like, oh, man, coverage, thank you. Well, we also talked about this. This is the perfect storm for them walking in here at the end of the year

and beating the Vikings. That's true. We talked about this, This is the perfect storm for them walking in here at the end of the year and beating the Vikings. That's true. We talked about this. They're going to get a regime change and get a little bit of a spark, a little bit of a juice here at the end. It might even be for that eighth seed, but I still stand by my Detroit wins the last game of the year just because that's what Detroit does.

That is such a good take. Jeremiah Searles, as always, great. And if you're going to throw out those breakdowns on Twitter, give your Twitter handle, sir, so people can check them out. Yes, so check me out at Searles71 underscore HSKR on Instagram at JSearles71. I will break down some of these stuff and throw it out there on Twitter. I'm still trying to think of a clever name for my breakdown segments. I mean, everyone has, like, the Baldies breakdowns. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if you have a clever name, tweet it at me too. I don't know. I'm thinking of like something back to like some review the tape or husking upon, upon further review, something like that. So we'll figure it out. Tape husking. All right. Tape husking.

The tape Husker. The tape Husker. The tape Husker. I love it. Talk to you next week. I'll see you boys.